Wen Hargreaves saved Bayern Munich on Saturday with an injury-time free kick, lifting the defending German champions to a 3-3 draw against Hannover 96.

　　Bayern trailed 1-3 at the half before mounting a furious comeback as the Bundesliga played on its hottest day ever with temperatures at some stadiums soaring to 44 degrees Celsius.

　　"I think I struck it very well. A free kick like that gives you self-confidence," said Hargreaves, who recorded just his second goal in 70 Bundesliga matches.

　　Fire departments were called in all across the league to spray down the spectators for relief on a day when there were just two victories in seven matches.

　　Borussia Dortmund, belying the heat, went top of the table with an energetic perfor-mance in a 4-0 thrashing of VfL Wolfsburg with two goals by Czech star Tomas Rosicky.

　　Hannover already scored a huge upset last week by stunning Hamburg SV 3-0 and appeared set to bag an even bigger coup against Bayern after heading into the break up two goals. But the defending champions attacked relentlessly in the second half and deserved the draw.

　　Peruvian forward Claudio Pizarro put back a rejected attempt by Bastian Schweinsteiger to pull back a goal. That set up the game decider by Hargreaves, whose free kick flew under the bar 49 seconds into injury time.

　　But the day also belonged to Pizarro, who was Bayern's best player on the field and built his case for staying first choice. A forward battle on the side has been triggered by the signing of Deportivo de La Coruna's Roy Makaay. Pizarro also scored another goal called offside that clearly was legitimate.

　　"He was excellent," Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld said. "The goal was not offside. That was bitter for him - otherwise he would have scored the game-winner."

　　Bayern, which played a sloppy first half, was shocked by a beautiful 10th minute free kick score by Nebojsa Krupnikovic. Amidst Bayern's sloppy passing and failure to hold the ball, Jiri Stajner scored in the 25th and Thomas Christiansen in the 43rd.

　　In between, Michael Ballack kept Bayern in the match with a powerful long-distance blast in the 39th which surprised 'keeper Gerhard Tremmel, who bobbled the ball.

　　Dortmund hadn't delivered a first-rate match on attack since late last season and has been decimated by injuries. That's one reason coach Matthias Sammer had publicly criticized Rosicky, saying the playmaker needed to raise his play.

　　Rosicky responded by finishing off an Otto Addo cross in the 24th, shaking off a defender and stroking it inside the left post. He then volleyed in a rebound in the 51st.

　　"I think it did me good," Rosicky said of Sammer's remarks. "But it was good because we've had considerable problems."

　　The match was played at Dortmund's Westafalenstadion, recently expanded, in front of 75,000 and ended with a 74th minute goal by Jan Koller and another by Marcio Amoroso three minutes before the end.

　　In other matches, it was: Kaiserslautern 2, FC Cologne 1; Werder Bremen 1, Borussia Moenchengladbach 1; FC Freiburg 2, Hansa Rostock 2; VfL Bochum 1, Hamburg SV 1; and 1860 Munich 1, Schalke04 1.

　　Hamburg and Schalke, both regarded as among the league's top teams, each failed to pick up their first win after two rounds.

　　Jupp Heynckes settled for his second straight draw as Schalke's new coach, at least getting the 56th minute equalizer on Uruguayan Dario Rodriguez's first goal.

　　Hamburg started with a flurry of chances against Bochum, getting a 19th minute reward when Japanese forward Naohiro Takahara rifled in a pass on the run.

　　But Peter Madsen leveled in the 30th and the match turned into a dull affair afterwards as the players wilted under the heat.