Werder Bremen 2-1 Hertha Berlin

Posted Saturday, February 06, 2010 by ESPN

Werder Bremen ended a five-match losing streak with a home win over the Bundesliga's bottom club Hertha Berlin at the Weserstadion.

The win breathed life into Werder's fading hopes of European qualification and came thanks to goals from Marko Marin and Claudio Pizarro, with Theofanis Gekas quickly cancelling out the home side's opener.

Hertha remain seven points off safety, although they made Werder work hard for the three points.

Werder threatened first after five minutes as Aaron Hunt's lofted ball found Mesut Ozil in the box having beaten the Hertha offside trap, but the Germany international's left-foot shot was blocked by the body of visiting goalkeeper Jaroslav Drobny.

Peruvian forward Pizarro hit the post with a free header following a 20th-minute corner from Marin, and with Hertha unable to clear the South American quickly regained possession and rolled the ball into the path of Hunt, but his low shot was parried by Drobny.

The hosts had a lucky escape 10 minutes later when Hertha had a goal wrongly disallowed. Adrian Ramos made space for himself and played a brilliant through-ball to Gekas, who was level with the last defender and finished smartly, only for the referee's assistant to raise his flag.

Hertha were unlucky again in the 33rd minute when Ramos appeared to be pulled to the ground by Clemens Fritz in the box, although they had a slice of fortune seconds later when Pizarro headed Marin's cross from the right straight at Drobny. Had it been a yard either side of the goalkeeper it would have been impossible to stop at such close range.

The breakthrough came in the 66th minute when Ozil's attempted shot was charged down by Lukasz Piszczek and sat up nicely for Marin, who despatched a sweet volley past Drobny.

However, the lead was short-lived as Gekas pounced from close range after Pizarro and goalkeeper Tim Wiese failed to clear a free-kick into the box.

The Peruvian made up for his error, and for his earlier misses, when he brought Torsten Frings' free-kick into the box under control and drilled a low left-foot shot past Drobny with nine minutes left for his eighth goal in 11 starts.

Cicero tried to hit back for Hertha with five minutes to go, but his overhead kick cleared Wiese's crossbar, and Piszczek volleyed over the capital club's last chance after Wiese again failed to get any distance at all on his attempted punch.