Chandler’s rare goals fire Frankfurt to beat Augsburg 5-0

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Timothy Chandler doesn’t score many goals, but when he does he makes them count.

The U.S. right back scored twice — normally his return for a whole season — to power Eintracht Frankfurt to 5-0 over Augsburg in the Bundesliga on Friday.

Chandler played like a forward to score the opening goal in the 37th minute, hovering between Augsburg’s full back and center back before picking up a pass from Dominik Kohr and blasting it into the net. His second goal came just after the break, a well-timed header at the near post.

André Silva, on loan from Milan, soon made it 3-0 with a header of his own off Filip Kostić’s cross.

“My first double in the Bundesliga. It’s crazy,” Chandler said.

Late on, Kostić scored two more in the space of 71 seconds as Augsburg’s defense fell apart.

Chandler missed almost all of the 2018-19 season with a knee injury and struggled to get game time in the first half of this campaign.

He’s started all four of Frankfurt’s league games so far in 2020, often higher up the field than usual, and he’s scored four goals in that time. The first was the winning goal against Hoffenheim on Jan. 18, and the second came in stoppage time to rescue a 1-1 draw with Fortuna Düsseldorf on Feb. 1.

Until Friday, he’d never scored twice in a Bundesliga game, and his four goals are a personal record for a top-tier league.

Frankfurt’s win lifts the team up two places to ninth, dropping Augsburg to 11th. Augsburg has lost three of its four games in 2020, conceding 14 times.