Landon Donovan suffered an afternoon of frustration as Hertha Berlin moved to the Bundesliga summit with a 2-1 win over Bayern Munich on Saturday.
The on-loan Los Angeles Galaxy striker received an unexpected call-up from the bench after 35-minutes when Luca Toni limped off with an Achilles problem, but Donovan failed to shine as Bayern struggled to involve their front line.
Hertha took the lead three minutes after Donovan’s introduction with a goal directly attributable to the negligence of Christian Lell. The Bayern fullback needlessly conceded possession in midfield with an unnecessary cross-field switch, which found Hertha’s Patrick Ebert free on the right flank.
Ebert advanced towards the Bayern penalty area before hoisting a speculative deep cross which the recovering Lell badly misjudged. Andriy Voronin nipped in to steer a header beyond goalkeeper Michael Rensing from eight yards.
Donovan had his first sight of goal on 54-minutes when Zé Roberto’s in swinging cross-found him with a yard of space near the penalty spot.
His header was denied by a brilliant diving stop by Jaroslav Drobný. The Czech goalkeeper recovered quickly to thwart Miroslav Klose’s follow-up as Bayern finally began to threaten.
Aside from the energetic Franck Ribery, Bayern were stale in midfield and lacked the desire to push ahead of the ball.
Manager Jürgen Klinsmann put Lell out of his misery at 58-minutes as Tim Borowski was introduced to shake up his team’s core. The change brought instant dividends as Bayern drew level 61-minutes in.
Lucio strode forward before firing a viciously swerving 35-yard attempt at goal.
Drobný could only parry the Brazilian defender’s effort down to the feet of Bastian Schweinsteiger, but he recovered brilliantly to deny the German International with a wondrous reflex sav
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