By DPA
Hamburg : Bayern Munich salvaged a 1-1 draw at lowly Nuremberg as they retained a big lead in German Bundesliga football as all of their rivals also failed to win.
Zvjedzev Misimovic volleyed home for Nuremberg shortly before halftime but the first league season goal from Lukas Podolski saw the Bavarian clubs share the points in their 50th Bundesliga duel Saturday.
“We had a bad day. All our players returned tired from their international matches (Wednesday),” said Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld.
Munich have 54 points and are still seven points clear of SV Hamburg (47 points) who also drew 1-1, at home with Arminia Bielefeld.
Schalke have 45 points after a goalless draw at mid-table SC Karlsruhe. Bayer Leverkusen (44) fell 2-0 at home to Eintracht Frankfurt and Werder Bremen (44) had to swallow their third defeat in now four winless games, an embarrassing 2-1 at home against MSV Duisburg who were bottom at the start of the day.
Bayern had vowed to do better than in a 2-0 defeat at then bottom side Energie Cottbus two weeks ago, but their only notable chance came 13 seconds into the game but goalkeeper Jaromir Blazek denied league top scorer Luca Toni.
Nuremberg, who had not won in nine games since a 2-1 against Hertha Berlin Dec 9, showed no respect for their star-studded rivals and were awarded in the 44th when Misimovic smashed their 1-0 lead high into the far right corner over Oliver Kahn.
Jan Koller should have made it 2-0 from point blank range in the 59th and Nuremberg were punished in the 81st when Franck Ribery fed the substitute Germany forward Lukas Podolski for a short-range equaliser.
In Hamburg, David Jarolim got his marching orders in the 67th for grabbing Markus Schuler by the genitals, the third HSV player sent off in eight days. Bielefeld then scored from Markus Bollmann, but Paulo Guerrero got the equaliser in the 81st and Bielefeld also ended the game with 10 men after Joerg Boehme had a second bookable offence.
A week after losing 1-2 in Munich, Leverkusen also crashed against Frankfurt from an own goal by Stefan Kiessling and Evangelos Mantzios. Frankfurt now have 42 points with a European berth in sight.
Duisburg led 2-0 at halftime in Bremen from Ivica Grlic’s curling 25m free kick and a strong run by Manasseh Ishiaku. Bremen pulled one back from Diego’s free kick but Duisburg hung on to win and move out of the drop zone for the first time since last September.
“We are very disappointed. We must score goals again when it matters,” said Bremen defender Per Mertesacker.
The highest-scoring game came in Bochum were hosting VfL threw away a 2-0 lead after nine minutes in a 3-3 draw with neighbours Borussia Dortmund. Benjamin Auer scored twice for Bochum and Christoph Dabrowski their other. Dortmund’s goals came from Sebastian Kehl, Mladen Petric and Tinga.
VfL Wolfsburg won 1-0 at Hansa Rostock on Friday. On Sunday, champions VfB Stuttgart (41 points) are at Hanover 96 and Energie Cottbus, now back at the bottom, meet Hertha.