Wolfsburg, Leverkusen, Hamburg crash out of cup

There were three big upsets in the German Cup’s second round on Wednesday as defending Bundesliga champions Wolfsburg, current league leaders Hamburg and Bayer Leverkusen were all dumped out.

Having beaten Stuttgart on Saturday to lift themselves off the bottom of the Bundesliga, Cologne claimed the scalp of Wolfsburg as Nigeria striker Manasseh Ishiaku scored two first-half goals in a 3-2 victory.

Wolves striker Edin Dzeko pulled one back for the visitors in the 54th minute.

Then Cologne’s Germany striker Lukas Podolski played a through ball to fellow forward Sebastian Freis who made it 3-1 on 65 minutes before defender Sascha Riether pulled back another goal for Wolfsburg less than a minute later.

Dzeko missed a glorious chance to equalise and his coach Armin Veh was so incensed he earned himself a red card and was dismissed to the stands.

“For the spectators, I am sure it was a very good game,” stormed Veh.

“We could easily have conceded more goals and scored a few of our own.

“This defeat doesn’t throw us off course, we are still in good shape.”

Bundesliga leaders Hamburg suffered a huge upset when they lost on penalties at third division Osnabrueck after the game finished 3-3 following extra-time.

“It is certainly very disappointing that we have been knocked out here,” fumed Hamburg’s Germany winger Piotr Trochowski.

“But we only have ourselves to blame, we created too few chances and made life hard for ourselves.”

Osnabrueck went 2-0 up as midfielder Niels Hansen scored in the 52nd minute, then midfielder Benjamin Siegert slotted home on 67 minutes.

Hamburg’s Croatia striker Mladen Petric pulled one back for Hamburg on 77 minutes and then Trochowski netted a penalty in injury time to force extra time.

Defender Guy Demel scored in the 100th minute, but Osnabrueck scored again before Petric missed his spot kick as the minnows claimed a 4-2 win on penalties.

Hertha Berlin, who are bottom of the Bundesliga table after last weekend’s crushing 4-0 defeat at home to Freiburg, suffered further humiliation when they also lost on penalties at second-division Munich 1860.

Having found themselves 2-0 down, two goals in the last 15 minutes from Hertha took the game to extra time before the match was decided by a penalty shoot-out as the home side won 4-1 to book their place in the third round.

Defending German Cup champions Werder Bremen needed a late winner from Brazil defender Naldo in the 82nd minute to be sure of their place in the third round with a 2-1 win against second division St Pauli.

And Stuttgart – who dropped ex-Germany goalkeeper Jens Lehmann for visiting Munich’s Oktoberfest after his side lost to Cologne in the German league on Saturday – needed extra time to win 3-1 at minnows Luebeck.

On Tuesday, Belgian international defender Daniel Van Buyten scored his fourth goal in three games as Bayern Munich booked their place in the third round of the German Cup with a 5-0 win over minnows Rot-Weiss Oberhausen.

Schalke 04 had few problems in the Ruhr valley derby against Bochum with a 3-0 win as defender Heiko Westermann and striker Halil Altintop scored for the Royal Blues before the home side conceded an own goal through Christian Fuchs.

Eintracht Trier striker Sahr Senesie wrapped up his hat-trick in injury time for the minnows as they beat second-division Arminia Bielefeld 4-2 after extra-time.

Bundesliga side Nuremberg crashed out as they were beaten 1-0 by Hoffenheim.

And Borussia Moenchengladbach also exited when they lost 1-0 to Duisburg having conceded an injury time goal from Belgium’s Kristoffer Andersen who scored against his old club.