Bayern Munich stayed top of the Bundesliga despite being held to a surprise 0-0 home draw by strugglers Duisburg on Saturday as Werder Bremen were beaten for the first time since September.
Bayern's attack including midfielder Franck Ribery plus strikers Miroslav Klose and Luca Toni -- summer signings worth 49 million euros (US$71.8 million) -- could not break down 10-man Duisburg's defense, which has leaked 25 goals already this season.
Even though they had striker Mohammadou Idrissou sent off nine minutes from time, the draw moved Duisburg up to 16th in the league -- third from bottom -- and means Bayern now have a two-point lead at the top.
PHOTO: AP
Ten-man Bremen missed out on a golden chance to take over at the top after losing a seven-goal thriller at Hanover, their first defeat since they were humbled 3-0 by Dortmund in September.
The home side stormed into a 3-1 lead through a double strike from Mike Hanke and an own-goal from Bremen defender Frank Baumann before Swedish striker Markus Rosenberg won a penalty for Bremen.
Brazilian midfielder Diego converted to make it 3-2 at the break before Rosenberg netted his second goal to put the guests level, but Hanke showed a little bit of magic as the striker sealed his hat trick on 77 minutes.
Adding insult in injury time, Bremen had striker Hugo Almeida dismissed in the third minute of injury time as Hanover move up to fifth, while Bremen are second and Hamburg stay third after their 0-0 draw at home with bottom side Energie Cottbus.
"My team tried a little bit too hard and made a few too many errors," Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf said. "We began very well, but unfortunately did not maintain that and it just wasn't our day."
Defending champions VfB Stuttgart dominated VfL Wolfsburg at the Gottlieb-Daimler Stadium.
Romania striker Ciprian Marica headed home on 26 minutes before Brazilian striker Cacau stabbed home a cross just two minutes after the half-time break.
And German international midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger added a third on 86 minutes to seal the 3-1 win which keeps them eighth.
Schalke 04 drew 2-2 with Eintracht Frankfurt as 20-year-old midfielder Faton Toski scored his first Bundesliga goal for Eintracht.
Schalke's Heiko Westermann netted in the 77th minute to put his side level before Greek striker Ioannis Amanatidis, who had a brush with the law in midweek after he was accused of assaulting a woman, scored in the 82nd minute.
But Schalke's blushes were spared when Westermann grabbed his second a minute from time as his side dropped back to seventh in the league.
There was a strange incident late in the game when Schalke substitute Carlos Grossmueller stormed off the bench, still in his tracksuit and bib, to argue with -- and eventually push over -- Frankfurt's Michael Thurk.
The referee showed the Schalke man an immediate red card.
Stanislav Sestak was Bochum's hero as he scored twice to seal their 2-2 draw at home to Karlsruhe.
TITLE CAMPAIGN: The victory sent the Monkeys to the Taiwan Series for the third time in the past four seasons as they seek their first championship since 2019 The stage is set for the Taiwan Series after the Rakuten Monkeys on Monday beat the Uni-President Lions 4-3 in Game 5 of the CPBL Challenger Series in Kaohsiung. The Monkeys, who entered the top of the ninth scoreless, tied the game with a three-run blast by Lin Chih-ping and scored the winning run in the 10th on an RBI single by Lin Li, a three-time batting champion in the CPBL. Both players entered the game as pinch hitters. “The coach told me to stay prepared as a pinch hitter in the later part of the game. My teammates had
The Ministry of Sports on Wednesday night called for the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) to address issues in Taiwanese soccer after national manager Huang Che-ming on Tuesday resigned following Taiwan’s elimination in AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. Taiwan on Tuesday were thrashed 6-1 by Thailand in their Group D tie at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Taiwan finished with no points, after losing all four of their matches, eliminating them from qualifying for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. Huang made his surprise resignation at a post-match news conference, following three losses since he took over the team from English coach Gary White in August. Huang
HIT AND RUN: Toronto manager John Schneider got his wish that his team ‘find some slug in the air out here,’ as the Blue Jays combined to total 611m of homers Tired in Toronto, the Blue Jays slugged in Seattle. Vladimir Guerrero Jr and George Springer on Wednesday woke up the Jays, as Toronto hit five home runs to rebound from an early deficit, routing the Mariners 13-4 and closing to 2-1 in the American League Championship Series (ALCS). Toronto had 18 hits — all within the first three pitches of each at-bat. “If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said. Seattle starter George Kirby gave up eight of the hits. “I wasn’t really executing when they got
For a second straight day, protests by La Liga players against staging a regular-season game in Miami, Florida, in December were censored or not fully broadcast for television audiences. The television feed of Barcelona’s home game against Girona switched right before kickoff to an exterior view of the stadium, which only showed part of the field from a distance. That impeded home audiences from seeing the teams’ players standing still for the first 15 seconds in opposition to La Liga’s plan to hold the Barcelona-Villarreal game across the Atlantic on Dec. 20. The broadcasts of the initial moments after kickoff of the
RSS