Bayern Topple Again

Hitzfeld only took over the coaching reins at the troubled champions a day ahead of the southern German derby after Felix Magath had been fired on Wednesday.

In front of a capacity 47,000 crowd in Nuremberg Bayern continued where they left off on Tuesday when they were held to a goalless draw at home by lowly VfL Bochum.

They played unimaginative football and seldom put the home side, who have lost only twice the whole season, under pressure.

Bayern outplayed

However, it was not only Bayern's failures that gave Nuremberg the victory, the side simply outplayed their more illustrious opponents.

Ivan Saenko gave the home side the lead in the 13th minute after being sent through by Markus Schroth. The Russian took the ball around goalkeeper Oliver Kahn and pushed it into the empty net.

Slovakian international Robert Vittek could have made it two a few minutes later, but saw his header hit the crossbar.

A lot of work to be done

Hitzfeld brought on German striker Lukas Podolski as a third forward in an attempt to change his side's fortune, but instead of scoring an equalizer, Bayern found themselves two goals down when Schroth scored his side's second in the 71st with a close-range header.

Any chance Bayern had of snatching an unexpected -- and undeserved -- draw were dashed four minutes from the end with a fine solo effort by Vittek who played cat and mouse with the Bayern defense before scoring with a right-footed shot.

"It was disappointing to see how the team collapsed at the end of the game and to see how little confidence they had," Hitzfeld said. "There is a lot of work that needs to be done."

Nuremberg more confident

Scorer Schroth, whose goal helped give Nuremberg their first victory against Bayern since May 1999 said that they had known that they had a chance to win.

"We are doing well at the moment and we have seen some weaknesses in Bayern," he said. "We made use of those."

For Bayern, who have picked up just one point from their three first games of the second half of the season, it is the worst start after the winter break since 1975.

The result sees Bayern remain in fourth place on 34 points, while Nuremberg move two places to fifth with 30 points.

One of the two leading clubs, Werder Bremen or Schalke 04 who are currently on 42 points, could pull 11 points ahead of Bayern on Sunday. The two meet in Bremen in a top of the table clash.