Van der Vaart penalty gives Hamburg win over Leverkusen

Hamburg maintained their perfect start to the Bundesliga season when a penalty from Rafael van der Vaart proved enough to give them a 1-0 win at home to Bayer Leverkusen yesterday. Dutch midfielder Van der Vaart, who is trying to secure a move to...

Hamburg maintained their perfect start to the Bundesliga season when a penalty from Rafael van der Vaart proved enough to give them a 1-0 win at home to Bayer Leverkusen yesterday.

Dutch midfielder Van der Vaart, who is trying to secure a move to Valencia before the transfer window closes, fired in the only goal in the 64th minute after a handball in the area.

Hamburg's victory took them level on six points with leaders Bayern Munich - the only other team with maximum points from two Bundesliga games.

Bayern won 4-0 away to Werder Bremen on Saturday to underline their status as the overwhelming favourites for the Bundesliga title.

Schalke 04 are in third place on four points after a 4-1 win at home to Borussia Dortmund in the big Ruhr Valley derby on Saturday.

Champions VfB Stuttgart are down in 15th place with just a point from two games after they lost 3-1 at Hertha Berlin on Saturday.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.