THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FRANKFURT — Defending champion Bayern Munich was held to a scoreless tie by 10-man Werder Bremen on Sunday and fell to fifth in the Bundesliga standings.
Werder lost central defender Naldo to a red card after 15 minutes but Bayern, coming off a 5-0 win at Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League, was unable to break through. Bayern has won only one of its last five games in the Bundesliga while losing three.
Wolfsburg won 3-1 at Hamburger SV on two goals from Grafite to move past Bayern into fourth on goal difference. Also on Sunday, Stuttgart beat Karlsruhe 2-0.
On Saturday, Andriy Voronin scored his fourth goal in as many games to help Hertha Berlin regain top spot with a 2-1 home victory over last-place Borussia Moenchengladbach. Hoffenheim missed a chance to take the lead in the standings following a 0-0 tie at Borussia Dortmund to remain third.
Hamburg could have returned to the top Sunday, but instead dropped its first home game this season. After 22 rounds, Hertha leads with 43 points, followed by Hamburg with 42, Hoffenheim with 41 and Wolfsburg and Bayern with 39 each.
Although Bayern was without Luca Toni, out with an Achilles tendon injury, coach Juergen Klinsmann decided to go with only one striker, Miroslav Klose, and left both Lukas Podolski and Landon Donovan on the bench
Klose had the first opening after two minutes, but failed to find Franck Ribery with a pass, although Klose could have shot himself.
Hamit Altintop and Ribery both missed for Bayern, while Michael Rensing made a good save to deny Bremen’s Mesut Ozil.
Bayern’s Tim Borowski nearly hit the net of his former club before Bremen was reduced to 10 men. Clemens Fritz slipped to allow Bastian Schweinsteiger an open way to Bremen’s goal and Naldo stopped the Bayern midfielder with a body check for which he earned a red card.
Podolski came on at the start of the second half and had the first shot at the goal, but aimed it high.
Claudio Pizarro had a good chance for Bremen but shot wide from several metres before goalkeeper Christian Vander stopped Ze Roberto’s powerful drive from close range.
Donovan came in after 77 minutes for Altintop but made no difference.
Bremen, last season’s runner-up but now languishing in the bottom half of the standings, cleverly held on to possession in the last few minutes. Bremen had won 5-2 at Bayern in the first half of the season.
In Hamburg, Grafite converted a penalty in the 12th minute after Edin Dzeko had been brought down by Dennis Aogo and the Brazilian striker, playing less than three weeks after meniscus surgery, doubled the lead in the 25th following a textbook counterattack for his 14th goal of the season.
Paulo Guerrero pulled one back for Hamburg in the 73rd but Dzeko restored the two-goal lead only two minutes later, scoring from close range.
In Karlsruhe, the match began with a 15-minute delay after rowdy home fans stopped the bus with the visiting team from approaching the stadium. Police had to clear the way but beer bottles flew at the bus as it finally entered the stadium.
Elson and Sami Khedira scored for Stuttgart in the second half.