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.
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