"Hamburger" did not beat the league newcomers

2006-08-19 20:06 © EuroFootball.com

On Saturday, six more matches of the German football championship were played. Having secured their second consecutive victory, the players of "Werder" joined the undefeated "Nurnberg" at the top of the table. The current league champions "Bayern" can also join these clubs, as they will play their match against "Bochum" on Sunday.

In this round, Bremen's "Werder" team managed to defeat "Bayer" 2-1. It is worth noting that injured Bernd Schneider and Juan did not play for "Bayer." After about fifteen minutes, Stefan Kiessling invaded "Werder's" penalty area and was stopped by a foul from a "Werder" defender, resulting in an eleven-meter penalty for Bremen. Paul Freier left no hope for the opponents' goalkeeper and put Leverkusen's "Bayer" ahead with a strong shot. Just ten minutes later, the hosts equalized - the team's newcomer Diego lifted the ball into the penalty area, and last season's Bundesliga top scorer M. Klose headed it into the "Bayer" goal to level the score.

After playing for just over an hour, following a pass from S. Kiessling, "Bayer's" newcomer Sergej Barbarez had a good chance to score, but hit the crossbar. Soon after, the hosts had a chance to break ahead and took advantage - after another pass from Diego, the other team newcomer H. Almeida sent the ball into the goal from a long way out and gifted the victory to his club's fans. It is worth mentioning that Diego and H. Almeida joined "Werder" this summer and are currently demonstrating excellent play - H. Almeida already has two goals to his name, while Diego has scored once.

Continuing their unsuccessful streak are last season's leaders "Hamburger" - the coastal team failed to defeat league newcomers "Cottbus" away and played to a 2-2 draw. "Hamburger" took the lead first when B. Sanogo scored a beautiful goal from about 23 meters at the end of the first half. "Cottbus" equalized at the beginning of the second half, scoring an eleven-meter penalty for a handball by a "Hamburger" player who cleared the ball heading towards the goal.

At the end of the match, "Cottbus" managed to take the lead, but a minute later lost the advantage as D. Ziebig redirected the ball into their own goal. "Hamburger" had to finish the match with ten men when G. Demel was sent off for a scuffle with several opposing players.

Doing better against the league newcomers was the "Schalke" team, who managed to defeat "Aachen" despite playing with ten men for a long time and took home three points. The only goal of the match was scored in the 53rd minute by D. Rodriguez, redirecting a cross from a teammate into the goal.

The capital team "Hertha" achieved a powerful victory, crushing "Hannover" at home 4-0. The first goal of the match was scored by M. Pantelic, sending the ball into the net after Ellery Cairo's cross from the right. Just ten minutes later, the hosts doubled their lead - P. Dardai was the first to reach the ball bouncing off the crossbar and once again beat Robert Enke. After the break, M. Pantelic scored his second goal, and finally "Hannover" was buried by the nineteen-year-old P. Ebert, scoring the fourth goal for the Berlin team in the 76th minute. "Hertha" could have had an even greater lead, but at the end of the match, Yildiray Basturk failed to convert an eleven-meter penalty.

Another interesting match took place in Dortmund, where the match between "Borussia" and "Mainz" was decided in the final two minutes - in the 76th minute after M. Amedick's header, the hosts took the lead, but the 70,000 "Borussia" fans did not rejoice for long as Edu leveled the score just a minute later with an impressive breakthrough through the entire "Borussia" defense.

Statistics of Saturday's matches

2 - 2

39' [0 – 1] Boubacar Sanogo

56' [1 – 1] Vlad Munteanu (11 m.)

71' [2 – 1] Sergiu Radu

72' [2 – 2] Daniel Ziebig (own goal)

81' Guy Demel ("Hamburger") sent off

0 – 1

53' [0 – 1] Dario Rodriguez

29' Mladen Krstajic ("Schalke") sent off

0 – 0

2 – 1