Poor streak
January 29, 2010
The equalizer came in injury time as Hamburg's Piotr Trochowski scored with a blasting freekick. The last play of the match kept Hamburg at fifth in the Bundesliga and chalked up another game without a win for Wolfsburg, who haven't seen victory since early November. Wolfsburg, champions last year, are now in 10th place.
Playing in intermittent snowfall in Hamburg, Wolfsburg striker Edin Dzeko had put the visitors in the lead with a curling roller that bounced in off the left post in the first half.
The Wolfsburg defense was lucky three times in 120 seconds before Dzeko's goal. Mladen Petric's freekick sailed inches wide, goalkeeper Andre Lenz saved from Marcell Jansen's header and Marcus Berg's header was scraped off the goal line.
Hamburg went close again with a header from David Rozehnal in the 53rd minute, but it hit the crossbar.
The lackluster output from Hamburg's strike force will up the pressure on newly acquired star striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, who had to watch from the stands as he wasn't yet fit.
A 'bitter' draw
Neither side was happy with the result. For new Wolfsburg coach Lorenz-Guenther Koestner, the youth team coach who took over as Wolfsburg's senior coach this Monday after the sacking of Armin Veh, the stoppage-time equalizer kept him from being the one to pull the champions out of their current slump.
"If you give up an equalizer in the last minute it is extremely bitter," he said.
Mladen Petric also said the result was "bitter" for Hamburg, adding that his team "had enough chances to win the match."
Wolfsburg's coming matches will pit the team against the league's top three: Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich and Schalke.
Bayern, just two points behind Leverkusen, could top the table if they beat Mainz on Saturday. Leverkusen, still undefeated this season, host SC Freiburg on Sunday.
hf/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Darren Mara