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The first round of the German national football championship is over. At the halfway point of the season, the defending champion "Bayern" club is leading the league, followed by "Hamburger" club, six points behind, in second place, and the "Werder" players in third place. The second round of the Bundesliga battles will begin next year, at the end of January.
On Sunday, all attention was focused on Bremen, where two ambitious teams clashed - the local "Werder" club and the visitors from the port city - "Hamburger". The match started with attacks from the "Werder" team, but neither M.Klose nor N.Valdez could capitalize on their chances. "Werder" continued to attack, but "Hamburger" continued to be lucky - after a shot from T.Frings from 48 meters, the ball bounced off the crossbar, hit the goalkeeper's head, and almost went into the goal. Around the 39th minute, a penalty was awarded to the "Hamburger" goal, but this time too the visitors succeeded - goalkeeper S.Kirschstein was able to block J.Micoud's shot and keep his goal dry. However, at the end of the first half, what was supposed to happen happened - "Werder" scored a goal. Just in extra time added by the referee, Frenchman J.Micoud defeated the opponents' goalkeeper and thus "equalized" after the unrealized penalty from eleven meters.
The second half started completely differently - "Hamburger" played with more energy and created several dangerous episodes near the hosts' goal. "Werder" could have scored as well, as around the 50th minute the last "Hamburger" defender lost the ball, but T.Frings, one on one with the goalkeeper, failed to double the score. In the middle of the second half, the "Hamburger" coach made two substitutions, and it paid off as both players who appeared after the substitution created a goal - M.Kucukovic, who had spent only two minutes on the field, received a pass from N.Takahara, defeated the "Werder" goalkeeper and leveled the score. At the end of the match, both teams could have snatched victory, but neither club could capitalize on the chances, the match ended in a draw, and both clubs shared a point to maintain their positions.
The match between the "Hertha" and "Nurnberg" clubs ended with the same result. With about five minutes left to play until the end of the match, "Nurnberg" was still ahead, but they didn't hold on until the end, shortly after the capital's "Hertha" equalized the score and snatched a point. With fourteen points collected after eighteen rounds, the "Nurnberg" team is in fifteenth place, while the "Hertha" players, with twenty-six points, are in fifth place.
Sunday's statistics
1 - 1
45` [1 - 0] Johan Micoud
67` [1 - 1] Mustafa Kucukovic
1 - 1
55` [0 - 1] Ivan Saenko
86` [1 - 1] Alexander Madlung
Top goalscorers
(Player, club, goals)
1. Miroslav Klose ("Werder") - 16
2. Halil Altintop ("Kaiserslautern") - 13
3. Ebi Smolarek ("Borussia") - 11
4. Diego Klimowicz ("Wolfsburg") - 9
5. Thomas Brdaric ("Hannover") - 8
- Roy Makaay ("Bayern") - 8
- Ivan Klasnic ("Werder") - 8
League table
