Finland striker Teemu Pukki scored twice on his first full appearance for Schalke 04 to earn a point for his side in their 2-2 draw with Hanover 96 on Sunday in the German league.
With leaders Bayern Munich playing bottom side Augsburg later, the Royal Blues missed the chance to go second behind the Bavarians and remain fifth in the table with Hanover sixth.
With Schalke's Dutch striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar missing the game after breaking his nose last Thursday, his place went to 21-year-old Pukki, who joined from Helsinki in August and made his first start after two appearances from the bench.
Pukki put his side ahead when he sprinted onto a great pass from Schalke left-back Christian Fuchs and, with Hanover goalkeeper Ron-Robert Zieler off his line, the Schalke striker fired into an empty goal on 26 minutes.
But Schalke were ahead for less than three minutes before defender Kyriakos Papadopoulos headed into his own net to put Hanover level.
Norway striker Mohammed Abdellaoue headed Hanover into the lead on 59 minutes, but Pukki scored his second of the game on 73 minutes after a fine pass from Peru's Jefferson Farfan split the Hanover defence to share the points.
Schalke came close to snatching a late victory as midfielder Lewis Holtby twice tested Zieler in the last five minutes.
Defending champions Borussia Dortmund went second in the table, two behind Bayern, on Saturday with a convincing 5-1 hammering of VfL Wolfsburg as Japan star Shinji Kagawa and Germany teenager Mario Goetze ran riot.
Kagawa set up both the first and fourth goals for Dortmund, plus netted one of his own, while Goetze scored twice.
The win came at a price as defender Neven Subotic is expected to miss the next six weeks, including Champions League games against Arsenal and Marseille, with a facial fracture which needed an operation.
Werder Bremen went third, and joined Dortmund and Borussia Moenchengladbach on 23 points, when they came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 against ten-man Cologne thanks to a second-half hat-trick from Peru's Claudio Pizarro.
Moenchengladbach moved up to fourth after their come-back win at Hertha Berlin as Bayern-target Marco Reus scored both their goals in a 2-1 win.
Bayer Leverkusen threw away a 2-0 lead at home as strugglers Hamburg roared back with goals from ex-Germany players Marcell Jansen and Heiko Westermann to leave their side 16th in the league.
Hosts Nuremberg lost 2-1 at home to Freiburg as Senegal striker Papiss Ciss converted a penalty with the last kick of the game for the visitors which moves them to up third from bottom as mid-table Hoffenheim drew 1-1 with Kaiserslautern.
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Source: AFP
