Hamburg stops Bayern Run

Hamburg stopped Bayern Munich's Bundesliga dominance and extended their unbeaten record to 17 games this season after their 2-0 win at the AOL Arena on Saturday.

The defeat ended a run of 15 consecutive wins for Roy Makaay team and took Hamburg to within one point of the still league leaders who, for the first time in six months, now have to recover from losing a Bundesliga game.

Rafael van der Vaart opened the scoring for a dominant Hamburg after 10 minutes and former Bayern midfielder Piotr Trochowski sealed the much-deserved win after 62 minutes.

Bayern entertain Club Brugge in the Champions League on Tuesday hoping to bounce back immediately from their first loss of the season while Hamburg will be looking to book their place in the group phase of the UEFA Cup on Thursday by extending their unbeaten record to 18 when they face FC Copenhagen.

Rafael van der Vaart was the golden boy of Dutch football until recent years and his transfer from Ajax to Hamburg in the summer was received with a mixed feelings.

Many thought he was past his best and would never emulate the great Johan Cruyff as he had been heavily tipped to do as a youngster while others saw his move to the Bundesliga as an opportunity to rediscover his form away from the intense media interest across the border.

The latter has turned out to be the case with Van der Vaart playing a major part in Hamburg's incredible 16-game unbeaten run at the start of this season and his goal after 10 minutes gave the home side the advantage over Bayern.

Ali Karimi wasn't intending to thread a perfect ball through the middle of his own defence, but the Bayern midfielder's attempted interception of a cross-field ball wrong-footed his back-four and allowed van der Vaart to break through and beat Oliver Kahn with a low shot into the far corner.

A subdued Bayern had the opportunity to reply immediately, but Michael Ballack's free-kick was punched away by Stefan Wachter.

The home side kept up the tempo and continued to search for a second with Benjamin Lauth's dipping volley forcing a fine save out of Kahn.

Bayern coach Felix Magath reacted to a lacklustre first half from his side to bring Bastian Schweinsteiger and Paolo Guerrero in for Hasan Salihamidzic and Ali Karimi at the interval, reverting to a 4-4-2 formation and giving Roy Makaay, who hardly saw the ball in the first half, some support.

Nevertheless, it was still the home side who asked all the questions in the early stages of the second half with Lauth once again testing Kahn with a powerful, angled drive that the Germany 'keeper palmed away instinctively.

Magath made the last throw of the dice with half an hour remaining, bringing Mehmet Scholl in for Bixente Lizarazu, an attacking midfielder in place of a full-back as the Bayern coach looked for an equaliser.

But within seconds of the change, Magath's cavalier approach was punished as former Bayern midfielder Trochowski found room between Valerien Ismael and Lucio to collect Sergei Barbarez's through-ball and fire unstoppably into the top corner of Kahn's goal from 15-yards.

The expected Bayern onslaught failed to materialise as Hamburg remained in control of the game, allowing only rare efforts from Ze Roberto and Lucio to get through, but Wachter was never in any real danger between the posts as Thomas Doll's side took a much-deserved three points to keep a firm grip on second place in the table just one point now behind Bayern.