Voronin double fires Hertha top of the Bundesliga

Hertha Berlin’s Ukrainian striker Andrey Voronin fired his side to the top of the Bundesliga on Saturday with both goals which sealed a 2-1 win over Bayern Munich.

With Hoffenheim suffering their first defeat at the Rhein-Neckar-Arena when Bayer Leverkusen hammered them 4-1 on Friday night, the way had been paved for the winner of the Bayern-Hertha clash at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium to take over.

And Hertha took their chance to go from third to top and now lead Hoffenheim by a single point with Bayern third with two defeats in their last three games.

Even without star striker Marko Pantelic, who has a knee injury, Hertha made the brightest of starts and deservedly took the lead after Patrick Ebert fired in a long ball and Bayern defender Christian Lell gave Voronin too much space.

The Ukrainian fired his header past stranded Bayern goalkeeper Michael Rensing to make it 1-0 after 38 minutes.

It remained that way after the break until Munich, the defending champion, forced an equaliser midway through the second-half.

Brazilian defender Lucio smashed in a shot from far out which Czech goalkeeper Patrick Ebert blocked before midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger stabbed in a shot which Ebert again deflected.

But Germany striker Miroslav Klose was on hand to header the ball over the Berlin goalkeeper to make it 1-1 with 61 minutes played.

Ten minutes later, French midfielder Franck Ribery went on a darting run and put United States forward Landon Donovan, on for ankle-injury victim Luca Toni, into a perfect position, but he misfired his shot.

And the winning goal came when Brazilian midfielder Raffael went on a run through midfield which split the Bayern defence before Voronin slid his shot past Michael Rensing for the winner on 77 minutes to put Hertha top.

Germany midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger scored an 88th minute goal to seal a 3-3 draw for Stuttgart at Hanover as his side drop to seventh.

Wolfsburg are up to sixth after their 2-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt, while Werder Bremen’s dreadful run of results continue as they drew 1-1 with bottom side Borussia Moenchengladbach.

Mid-table Cologne and Karlsruhe ground out a 0-0 draw, while Schalke 04 striker Kevin Kuranyi put last week’s internet prank behind him as he scored for the Royal Blues in their 2-1 defeat at Bochum which leaves them eighth.

On Sunday, Hamburg have the chance to go third if they beat guests Arminia Bielefeld while Borussia Dortmund are home to Energie Cottbus.