Hamburg's 3-2 home victory over Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday wasn't enough to lift them to the UEFA Cup quarter-finals. The hosts needed to overturn a 1-0 deficit from the first leg but they were stunned by Sergej Barbarez's opener for Leverkusen after 19 minutes. Piotr Trochowski drew Hamburg level eight minutes after restart but Greek in-form striker Theofanis Gekas restored Leverkusen's lead two minutes later. Hamburg had an uphill to climb afterwards. They needed to score three goals to book a place in the next round. They only managed to score twice through Paolo Guerrero and Rafael van der Vaart, failing to progress due to the away-goal rule. Hamburg missed the presence of Egypt forward Mohamed Zidan, who couldn't make his side's squad due to a thigh injury.
