Nightmare day for Bayern sealed by Bremen victory

Bremen's Portuguese striker Hugo Almeida (R) is congratulated by his teammate striker Miroslav Klose after scoring against Leverkusen during their Bundesliga football match at the BayArena stadium in Leverkusen, western Germany. Bremen won 2-0.

Defending champions Bayern Munich slipped to eight points off the Bundesliga lead after pacesetters Werder Bremen and Schalke 04 both recorded wins on Wednesday.

Following their embarrassing goalless draw to lowly Vfl Bochum 24 hours earlier Bayern sacked their manager Felix Magath on Wednesday and replaced him with Ottmar Hitzfeld.

Hitzfeld, who in his first spell as Bayern manager led them to four titles and the Champions League crown, takes over a team lying fourth and struggling to qualify for the Champions League next season.

Werder turned up the pressure on the 20-time champions with a 2-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen, with German international striker Miroslav Klose joining Serb Marko Pantelic at the top of the Bundesliga scoring charts with 11 goals.

Schalke 04, in second also on 42 points, scraped through their home clash with Aachen 2-1.

In other action on Wednesday Vfb Stuttgart maintained third place with a 3-2 win over ninth-placed Arminia Bielfeld.

Hamburg are propping up the league after a disappointing 1-1 draw with Energie Cottbus.

On Tuesday after failing to beat their promoted opposition in a match Magath had labelled as 'must-win' Bayern suffered the indignity of being booed off by their fans.

Bayern could only muster one convincing attempt on goal when former Dutch international Mark van Bommel squandered his one-on-one clash with Vfl keeper Jaroslav Drobny in the 34th minute.