Bremen take lead with late draw as Hamburg crash (1st Lead)

By John Bagratuni Oct 31, 2009, 16:52 GMT

Hamburg - Aaron Hunt scored his second goal deep in injury time as Werder Bremen claimed the Bundesliga lead with a 2-2 draw in Nuremberg, capitalizing on a surprise first season defeat by SV Hamburg.

Hunt's goals cancelled out an early Nuremberg 2-0 lead and stretched Bremen's unbeaten run in competitive games to 17.

Bremen have 22 points and lead Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburg by goal difference. While Hamburg crashed 3-2 at home against Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen had the chance to go top again by avoiding defeat later Saturday at fourth-placed Schalke 04 (21).

On a bad day for the favourites, Bayern Munich (19 points) were held 0-0 at VfB Stuttgart and champions VfL Wolfsburg (18) drew 3-3 with Mainz 05.

Coming off two draws, Hamburg got the solid start they aimed for against Moenchengladbach when Germany midfielder Piotr Trochowski fired a low shot into the net from 13m.

The visitors levelled from Marco Reus in the 39th after a fine display of one-touch football, but Ze Roberto fired a curling freekick under the crossbar two minutes after the restart.

However, Moenchengladbach refused to bow and were awarded for the attacking efforts. Dante made it 2-2 in the 72nd and Rob Friend's low shot 10 minutes later secured a surprise victory.

That opened the door for Bremen, who appeared caught out cold in Nuremberg when Christian Eigler opened the scoring in the third after Bremen defenders and goalkeeper Tim Wiese failed to deal with a long pass from Andreas Wolf. Albert Bunjaku even made it 2-0 in the 33rd.

But the in-form Hunt headed home in the 72nd and then struck from the edge of the area two minutes into injury time for the final score.

Chances were sparse in Stuttgart where the hosts finally got a draw after losing their last five competitive games, while Munich's slight upwards trend did not continue.

Christian Traesch wasted the best chance for the hosts early on while Luca Toni was off target for Munich with 20 minutes left.

'I would have liked to have won. We could have taken a big step forward because the other top teams didn't win,' said striker Mario Gomez, who moved from Stuttgart to Munich in summer.

Cologne crashed 1-0 at home against Hanover in the other afternoon game while Borussia Dortmund beat bottom club Hertha Berlin 2-0 on Friday. The Sunday games are SC Freiburg vs TSG Hoffenheim and Eintracht Frankfurt vs VfL Bochum.