Lucio
BERLIN – Bayern Munich’s lead in the Bundesliga was reduced to two points Saturday after it was held to a 0-0 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt – despite 38 scoring attempts for Bayern.
"We had a terrible ratio of goals to tries," Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld said. "We were missing luck."
Second-place Hamburger SV beat Hertha Berlin 2-1. Bayern, once five clear at the top, now has 28 points from 13 rounds and Hamburg has 26.
Hamburg won its fourth straight match as Bastian Reinhardt headed in an 80th-minute free kick from Rafael van der Vaart for the winner.
"I don’t care about the table, I just care about the win today," Hamburg coach Huub Stevens said.
Werder Bremen moved to third – and four points behind Bayern – as its unbeaten streak reached seven games with a 1-0 win against Hansa Rostock.
Luca Toni and Miroslav Klose, the German first division’s top two scorers with eight goals each for Bayern, wasted several chances in front of 69,000 at Allianz Arena.
Toni had a clear shot at goal just 12 seconds into the match, but Frankfurt goalkeeper Oka Nikolov smothered his low attempt.
"If Luca Toni had made that, it would have stopped Frankfurt’s defensive tactics," Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said. "We had a crazy number of chances, 38 to 5 and a 17-2 edge in corners. It’s a real shame we didn’t win."
Klose had the same problems as Toni with his chances. Nikolov got his fingers on Klose’s header just after the break – slowing down his attempt just enough for the ball to be cleared at the line.
Hamburg’s unbeaten streak reached 11 games as Paolo Guerrero scored in the fourth minute while Patrick Ebert evened the score for Berlin in the 59th. Reinhardt’s winner then capped Hamburg’s domination, which included two shots off the posts.
Bremen won when Hugo Almeida volleyed from close range in the 39th after a free kick from Leon Andreasen.
"Hope is the last to die – we have a team that should win the championship," Almeida said.
Defending champion VfB Stuttgart appears to have pulled out of its early season slump, winning its third game in eight days. It beat FC Nuremberg, the German Cup winner, with the game’s only goal in the 25th from Mario Gomez. He dribbled past two players before putting a low shot under Nuremberg goalkeeper Jaromir Blazek. The recent surge has lifted Stuttgart from the relegation zone to 11th place.
Bayer Leverkusen also beat Arminia Bielefeld 4-0 and Hannover 96 was a 2-1 winner against Borussia Dortmund. On Friday, Energien Cottbus edged Schalke 1-0.
On Sunday, VfL Bochum plays VfL Wolfsburg and Karlsruher SC hosts MSV Duisburg.
Source: GER: Bayern Munich’s lead reduced
