The visitors made Bayern sweat before Roy Makaay opened the scoring in the 27th minute when he notched his 11th league goal of the season after Claudio Pizarro's pass gave the Dutchman space and time to place his shot.

But Slovakian international Robert Vittek put Nuremberg level eight minutes later, his shot from 20 yards giving Bayern 'keeper Oliver Kahn no chance.

As so often this season, Michael Ballack got the winner after Makaay turned provider on 54 minutes.

It was Ballack's ninth league strike of the season, underlining his worth to a team he may still leave at the end of the season.

FC Cologne failed to move off the bottom of the table after they shared the points in a goalless clash with Borussia Dortmund in the other game of the day.

On Saturday, Schalke 04 thrashed Bayer Leverkusen 7-4 in an extraordinary Bundesliga encounter while Werder Bremen's title challenge faltered again as they lost at home to basement side Kaiserslautern.

Werder slumped as Kaiserslautern pulled off one of the shocks of the season by snatching a valuable 2-0 victory which lifts them off the bottom of the table thanks to goals from Boubacar Sanogo and Ervin Skela.

But most of the day's action was in Gelsenkirchen where no fewer than six Schalke players found the net.

The home side raced into a 3-0 lead in the first 35 minutes before Andrey Voronin and Dimitar Berbatov pulled Leverkusen back to 3-2.

German international striker Kevin Kuranyi and Soren Larsen, with his second goal of the game, stretched Schalke's lead to 5-2, only to see Voronin again and Jacek Krzynowek peg it back to 5-4.

Only when Brazilian Lincoln and substitute Gerald Asamoah scored did Schalke finally pull away as the home supporters went delirious.

VfB Stuttgart's first match under new coach Armin Veh following the departure of Giovanni Trapattoni ended in misery as they went down 2-1 away to Arminia Bielefeld.