Schalke move top

Kevin Kuranyi scored twice as Schalke beat Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 to move past Bayern Munich to the top of the Bundesliga on Saturday and get on course for its first championship in 52 years.

Earlier, Stuttgart sent Bayern Munich to its second straight Bundesliga loss -- and first home defeat in 11 months -- with a come-from-behind 2-1 win.

Kuranyi's strikes brought his total to a league-high 17 goals, with both goals coming off passes from Jefferson Farfan.

Schalke now has a two-point lead over Bayern with six matches remaining -- and can all but clinch the championship if its beats Bayern next week at home.

"If we beat them next week, we have a good chance of winning the title, but we won't be home dry," said Schalke's coach Felix Magath, who won the title with Wolfsburg last season.

Schalke now has 58 points, two more than Bayern and five ahead of Bayer Leverkusen shirt.

"It hurts a lot," Bayern coach Louis van Gaal said of his team's defeat.

Leverkusen went a record 24 games undefeated but has lost three of its last four. It sorely missed injured top striker Stefan Kiessling, who has 16 goals.

Kuranyi pulled even when he picked up Farfan's pass and curled the ball inside the left post and then pulled ahead with a header in the 27th.

"We got well into the game and the early goals helped." Magath said. "It was a big win after a strong performance."

Leverkusen's coach Jupp Heynckes said Schalke had a good chance of winning the title.

"They were superior in all aspects, especially in the first half," Heynckes said.

After taking the early two-goal lead, Schalke rarely allowed Leverkusen to get close. With 22 goals allowed, Schalke has the stingiest defence.

In other games, Werder Bremen beat Nuremberg 4-2, Cologne won 4-1 in Hannover, Wolfsburg was a 2-0 winner in Mainz and Borussia Dortmund drew 0-0 at Hertha Berlin.

In Munich, Ivica Olic put Bayern ahead but Christian Traesch and Ciprian Marica scored for Stuttgart to hand Bayern its first loss in 17 home games. Bayern's afternoon got worse when Dutch international Arjen Robben pulled up with a left-calf injury, an injury that could prove costly ahead of Tuesday's Champions League quarter-final against Manchester United.

Van Gaal started with Robben and France playmaker Franck Ribery on the bench after Wednesday's extra-time 1-0 win over Schalke in their German Cup semifinal. Both came on after the break but neither made much of an impact.

Stuttgart started brightly against the Bundesliga leaders, Sami Khedira forcing goalkeeper Joerg Butt into a save in the 24th minute. At the other end, Daniel van Buyten came close for Bayern.

Olic opened the scoring for Bayern in the 32nd, connecting with a low cross from Croatia teammate Danijel Pranjic to bury the ball into the roof of the net.

But Stuttgart was uncowed and Traesch equalized in the 41st when his shot from 20 metres was deflected past Butt and into the net.

Stuttgart kept pressing. Timo Gebhart tested Butt, who barely managed to turn away his shot, before Marica scored the winner in the 50th.

Bayern's defence failed to clear a corner and Cacau floated a cross to the far post, where the unmarked Marica nodded the ball home.

Bayern should have tied it when Miroslav Klose's header off a cross from Philipp Lahm hit Stuttgart goalkeeper Jens Lehmann, but was also fortunate when Zdravko Kuzmanovic narrowly missed the target in the 78th after shaking off Bayern defender Diego Contento.

"Stuttgart is a good team and it created chances," van Gaal said. "We conceded an unlucky goal on a deflected shot and we were unlucky in front of Stuttgart's goal."

Bayern faces a series of decisive games, with another trip to Schalke on April 3, the return leg at Manchester United, and a visit to third-place Leverkusen in the Bundesliga.

Lehmann, the Stuttgart goalkeeper, said Bayern, which lost 2-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt last week, could be feeling the burden of playing in three competitions.

"We have only one game a week and maybe we were the fresher team," said Lehmann, whose team won in Munich for the first time since September 1999.

"It was time to win here again," Stuttgart's coach Christian Gross said.

Street kids topple Brazil

Never – until a spunky group of street kids from Metro Manila, who flew to Durban, South Africa on the wings of several generous souls, beat the Brazilian team, 6-2, in a heart-tugging match last Thursday.

After Wednesday’s tearful 0-2 loss to Tanzania, the team, dubbed the Philippine Street Child “Miracle” team, came back with a vengeance to beat world football superpower Brazil shirt in their final group A match of the Deloitte Street Child World Cup in Durban, an indoor international football tournament for street children. The Miracle team led 4-1 at the break.

As RP Women’s football team captain Marielle Benitez put it after hearing the news of the Pinoy streetkids’ victory, “Tinikling footwork beat Samba footwork.” Benitez, a member of Bayanihan, was one of those who gave the kids tinikling lessons for a dance presentation they did at the opening of the Deloitte Street Child World Cup last Tuesday.

Although the victory will not be enough to bring home the Deloitte-Street Child World Cup trophy, the Pinoy street kids, whose inspiring campaign is sponsored by British charity Angus Lawson Memorial Trust under the auspices of The Henry V. Moran Foundation, will now vie for the Street Child World Shield, a secondary trophy to the Street Child World Cup.

“We are a football team from a ‘basketball’ country that’s participating in a football tournament made up of teams from ‘football’ countries,” says Ed Formoso, manager of the team. “So how much of a chance do we really have in this event? It’s a question asked of me by so, so many. But when you believe so much in a project, and especially when you pray, you learn to believe that miracles might-can-will happen. So, will winning games in South Africa be a miracle? This is a team built on prayer and it has already won by getting as far as this. This far, these kids - it’s a miracle team already.”

Formoso and co-manager Craig Burrows recruited these street children from different shelters in Metro Manila. Jess Landagan, the head coach of the team, is a former street child himself. Soft spoken and humble, he knows his football and has lived the kind of life some of his players are living.

For the Deloitte-SCWC tournament in South Africa, Jess’ assistants and trainers were all former street kids and homeless players who represented the country in the 2008 Melbourne and 2009 Milan Homeless World Cup teams, two projects that were supported by The Henry V. Moran Foundation in partnership with the UOFC Foundation of American social entrepreneur Bill Shaw.

Before the kids left for South Africa, weekend football camps were held at the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Street Children Village under the supervision of Tuloy president and founder Salesian priest Rocky Evangelista.

Father Rocky played a lot of football in his youth and is a familiar footballer with many of the Filipino national players of his day. Father Rocky’s role was to turn this team into a football family. Several donors from the private sector pitched in to buy clothes, food and vitamins for the children. Practice games were sponsored at the International School and Brent School, to familiarize the street kids with taller opponents.

The Pinoys finished third in Group A, dubbed the group of death, with qualifiers UK and Tanzania ahead of them in this indoor international football tournament for street children. They were unlucky in their match against Tanzania and were thus eliminated from the main event, which is the Street Child World Cup.

Observers predict that the UK and Tanzania will meet in the finals on Sunday; both teams beat the Philippine team, 2-4 and 0-2 respectively.

The secondary semi-final crossover stage begins with the RP kids playing Ukraine in the SCW Shield while the Brazilians take on the South Africans. The winners of both games will play in the finals.

AC Milan chase Misimovic

According to reports in Italy, AC Milan shirt have set their sights on Wolfsburg playmaker Zvjezdan Misimovic and hope to tempt both him and club-mate Edin Dzeko to San Siro in the summer.

Tuttomercatoweb reports that Milan are ready to dish out €14 million for the 27-year-old midfielder this summer.

The Italians have been heavily linked with Dzeko all season with reports suggesting that they have long been planning a summer swoop for the Bosnian international and hope to finally agree a fee with the German club after the World Cup.

However, Rossoneri vice-president Adriano Galliani may now be heading to Germany to seal a double signing as Milan look to refresh an ageing squad that saw them crash out of the Champions League to Manchester United last week.

With Misimovic’s current contract set to run until 2013 and considering Wolfsburg’s reluctance to part with Dzeko, sealing a double-swoop this summer will not be an easy task.