Hertha Berlin’s Ukrainian striker Andrey Voronin fired his side to the top of the Bundesliga on Saturday with both goals that sealed a 2-1 win over Bayern Munich.
With Hoffenheim suffering their first defeat at the Rhein-Neckar Arena when Bayer Leverkusen hammered them 4-1 on Friday night, the way had been paved for the winner of the clash at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium to take over.
PHOTO: AP
And Hertha took their chance to go from third to top and now lead Hoffenheim by a single point. Bayern lie third after two defeats in their last three games.
“I am very, very happy,” Berlin coach Lucien Favre said. “We played as a team and the 2-1 result was deserved. A victory over Bayern Munich — that is enough for today.”
Hertha’s utter joy at the final whistle, in front of 74,000 fans, was in stark contrast to Bayern’s utter misery as they missed another chance to go top of the league.
“We are disappointed and very annoyed,” Bayern coach Jurgen Klinsmann said.
Even without star striker Marko Pantelic, who has a knee injury, Hertha made the brightest of starts and deservedly took the lead after Patrick Ebert fired in a long ball and Bayern defender Christian Lell gave Voronin too much space.
The Ukrainian fired his header past stranded Bayern goalkeeper Michael Rensing to make it 1-0 after 38 minutes.
It remained that way after the break until Munich, the defending champions, forced an equalizer midway through the second half.
Brazilian defender Lucio smashed in a shot from far out that Czech goalkeeper Patrick Ebert blocked, before midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger stabbed in a shot that Ebert again deflected.
But Germany striker Miroslav Klose was on hand to head the ball over the Berlin goalkeeper to make it 1-1 with 61 minutes played.
Ten minutes later, French midfielder Franck Ribery went on a darting run and put US forward Landon Donovan, on for ankle-injury victim Luca Toni, into a perfect position, but he misfired his shot.
And the winning goal came when Brazilian midfielder Raffael went on a run through midfield that split the Bayern defense, before Voronin slid his shot past Michael Rensing for the winner on 77 minutes to put Hertha top.
Elsewhere, Germany midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger scored an 88th-minute goal to seal a 3-3 draw for Stuttgart at Hannover as his side dropped to seventh.
Wolfsburg are up to sixth after their 2-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt, while Werder Bremen’s dreadful run of results continued as they drew 1-1 with bottom side Borussia Munchengladbach.
Mid-table Cologne and Karlsruhe ground out a 0-0 draw, while Schalke 04 striker Kevin Kuranyi put last week’s Internet prank behind him as he scored for the Royal Blues in their 2-1 defeat at Bochum, leaving them in eighth.
Badminton world No. 3 Anders Antonsen clinched his first Indonesia Open title yesterday after beating Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen, while South Korea’s An Se-young won her second championship in Jakarta. The 28-year-old Dane sank world No. 7 Chou at the Indonesian capital’s Istora Senayan arena, winning 22-20, 21-14 in a 60-minute match to secure the prestigious Super 1000 event. Antonsen came out on top in a tightly contested first game before cruising to victory in the second. In a more closely fought women’s singles final, South Korean ace and world No. 1 An fought back from one game down to beat China’s
Italy crashed to a 3-0 loss away to Norway, as the four-time FIFA World Cup champions made a disastrous start to their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign on Friday, while Belgium had to settle for a draw in North Macedonia. Alexander Sorloth, Antonio Nusa and Erling Haaland all scored in the first half in pouring rain in Oslo as Norway made it a night to forget for Italy, who missed out on the past two World Cups. “I have no explanation. Our supporters don’t deserve this kind of match. We need to do some soul-searching. It’s unacceptable,” Italy captain and goalkeeper Gianluigi
‘STILL’: In front of a packed New Jersey arena attended by Donald Trump and Mike Tyson, UFC 316 delivered high drama as Merab Dvalishvili retained his title Georgia’s Merab Dvalishvili scored a second-round submission win over Sean O’Malley to retain his bantamweight title at Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 316 on Saturday, with Kayla Harrison also winning by submission in the co-main event, tapping out Juliana Pena to claim the women’s bantamweight crown. In front of a packed crowd at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, which included US President Donald Trump and retired heavyweight great Mike Tyson, Dvalishvili, a 34-year-old from the country of Georgia, won the belt in a convincing, although not aesthetically pleasing, unanimous decision. Dvalishvili (19-4) sat on top of the cage and shouted
Manchester City on Monday completed the signing of left-back Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolverhampton Wanderers for a reported ￡31 million (US$41.8 million). The 24-year-old Algeria international has signed a five-year contract and will be available for the FIFA Club World Cup, which begins later this week. Ait-Nouri is expected to be just one of a trio of new City faces for that tournament with deals close to completion for AC Milan midfielder Tijjani Reijnders and Olympique Lyonnais playmaker Rayan Cherki. After missing out on a major trophy in the recently completed season for the first time since 2016-2017, City are hoping
RSS