Hamburg kicked off their Bundesliga campaign on a disappointing note, going down 1-0 to Nurnberg at home on Saturday.
The visitors started the game the brighter of the two sides, with Timothy Chandler, Mike Frantz and Hiroshi Kiyotake testing Hamburg's defence inside the first 20 minutes.
Nurnberg continued to dominate proceedings at the HSH Nordbank Arena and eventually broke the deadlock in the second half.
Hanno Balitsch's right footed shot from very close range found its way into the Hamburg goal in the 68th minute.
It could have been 2-0 to the visitors just moments later had Per Nilsson's header from close range not crashed against the Hamburg crossbar.
However, that did not haunt Nurnberg in the end as they registered an encouraging 1-0 away win in their opening game of the season.
