BERLIN: Ten-man Borussia Moenchengladbach snatched a last-gasp equalizer to draw 2-2 with Hamburg SV for whom Rafael van der Vaart scored his first goal since returning to the club but missed a second-half penalty in the Bundesliga on Wednesday night.
Alvaro Dominguez headed in a Juan Arango free kick in stoppage time to earn a draw after Van der Vaart, a crowd favorite at Hamburg after his first spell between 2005-08, drilled in a stunning shot from the edge of the box midway through the first half but struck his penalty against the post.
Artjom Rudnevs gave Hamburg the lead again on the stroke of halftime after Martin Stranzl, sent off in the 53rd for conceding the penalty, had leveled.
“It would have been a done deal had I scored the penalty,” Van der Vaart said. “After that I had the feeling that it could even all go wrong.” Dominguez’s late equalizer left Hamburg, who had beaten champions Borussia Dortmund last week for their first win, 14th on four points while Gladbach are 10th on six.
“I am satisfied because we played a very good game but a.m. furious for giving it away,” said Hamburg coach Thorsten Fink.
“We set the pace for 90 minutes and conceded two goals from set pieces.” Hanover 96 continued their stunning run to crush Nuremberg 4-1 with two goals from Ivorian forward Didier Ya Konan lifting them up to third on 10 points.
Hanover, who are also competing in the Europa League, are now unbeaten in 21 successive home games.
Bayer Leverkusen notched their first away win of the season, crushing Augsburg 3-1 to prove right team chief Sami Hyypia who said this week that recovery from a bad start was only a matter of time.
Hoffenheim continued their own recovery with their second successive win, beating hosts VfB Stuttgart 3-0 with Takashi Usami snatching an early lead and Joselu and Fabian Johnson also on target. Stuttgart, who have yet to win this season, are in 17th place.
Werder Bremen came from a goal down to beat Freiburg 2-1 with goals from Joseph Akpala and Aaron Hunt and score their first away win in seven months.
Bayern Munich opened up a two-point lead at the top after beating VfL Wolfsburg 3-0 on Tuesday. Borussia Dortmund dropped seven points behind on eight after squandering a two-goal lead to draw 3-3 at Eintracht Frankfurt who are second on 12.
Late goal earns Gladbach draw with Hamburg
Late goal earns Gladbach draw with Hamburg
Postecoglou admits taking Nottingham Forest post a ‘bad decision’
- Postecoglou, 60, was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s successor in September
- “There’s no point me blaming it on ‘I didn’t get time’ or anything,” said Postecoglou
LONDON: Ange Postecoglou has said he has only himself to blame for an extraordinarily brief reign as Nottingham Forest manager, with the Australian accepting he made “a bad decision” taking on the job with the Premier League strugglers.
Postecoglou, 60, was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s successor in September.
But infamously impatient Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis sacked Postecoglou just 39 days later, after the experienced manager lost six of his eight games in charge.
Postecoglou, reflecting on his time at Forest for the Overlap podcast, said an over-eagerness to get back into management after his departure from Tottenham Hotspur three months earlier, had been the root cause of his troubles at the City Ground.
“There’s no point me blaming it on ‘I didn’t get time’ or anything,” said Postecoglou. “I should never have gone in there. That was on me. That was a bad decision by me to go in there. I’ve got to take ownership of that.
“It was too soon after Tottenham. I was taking over at a time where they were kind of used to doing things a certain way and I’m obviously going to do things differently. I’ve got to cop that, that was my mistake. It’s no-one else’s fault.”
Postecoglou remains without a club but he has ruled out returning to Celtic, where he enjoyed a successful two-year stint from 2021-23, with the 73-year-old Martin O’Neill currently in caretaker charge of the Scottish champions until the end of the season.
“I loved Celtic, it’s a wonderful football club,” said Postecoglou, who left the Glasgow giants to join Spurs. “If I was younger, I probably would have stayed there longer. I probably would have stayed there three, four years.
“I think I could have made progress with them in Europe but at the time, it had taken me a long time to get to this sort of space, and the opportunity to join Tottenham was too good.
“In terms of going back, I don’t go back. I just don’t think that’s kind of been my career.
“Whatever the next step is, it’ll be something new, somewhere I can make an impact in, somewhere I can win things, but it doesn’t diminish the affection I have for Celtic.”
