HSV failed to gain promotion to the Bundesliga six times in a row. The traditional club always found itself in crisis in the spring. Under coach Baumgart, the downturn now occurs much earlier. What mistakes plague HSV and how the turnaround should succeed.
For the seventh time, Hamburger SV is trying to achieve its big goal of returning to the Bundesliga. The once-glorious club failed six times because it regularly collapsed in the second half of the season. After the deserved 1:3 (0:1) at relegation candidate Eintracht Braunschweig, it looks at first glance as if the big spring crisis will hit HSV in November this time.
The Hamburg team has been without a win for four games, including the cup elimination at SC Freiburg. They have never had fewer points after twelve of 34 match days in the second division than this year, only 19. “The international break now comes in handy for us. We can gather there again. “After that we have to attack again,” said captain Sebastian Schonlau after a partly desolate game.
But HSV’s problem is not the score. Or the still manageable gap to the two direct promotion places. Rather, everyone involved in the Eintracht Stadium on Friday evening seemed at a loss as to how the slump of the past few weeks could be explained.
“We keep tripping ourselves up”
“There are questions that I know will come. But unfortunately I still can’t answer it,” said coach Steffen Baumgart. With his predecessor, Tim Walter, the connection between sporting failure and a transparent, error-prone style of play was obvious. But under Baumgart, HSV seemed to be much further along.
In October, his team defeated their table neighbors Fortuna Düsseldorf and 1. FC Magdeburg and showed exactly the maturity that they had been missing for years. In Braunschweig, however, the Hamburg team lost all stability, just like before in Elversberg (2:4) and against 1. FC Nürnberg (1:1). “We keep tripping ourselves up,” said Baumgart. “These individual mistakes are costing us too much at the moment.”
The 52-year-old stood demonstratively in front of the players in Braunschweig and said: “The boys have rebelled.” According to his interpretation, HSV currently doesn’t want too little in a complacent way – but rather too much in a hectic, over-motivated way.
As an example, Baumgart described the creation of the third goal by Rayan Philippe (65th minute): “Luki (Poreba) comes in and tries to play a very good pass through the center. And then Daniel (Elfadli) wants too much and misses the ball,” he said: “Mistakes happen. But it can’t be that we do three or four in a row in just 30 seconds. That really annoys me. But that’s also my job, to bring peace and quiet. My responsibility!”
Six arrivals from first division teams
On paper, HSV has developed backwards rather than forwards under Baumgart. Last season, his team fell from third to fourth place under him. This season she has not been in the top two places once.
It was also the case this summer that the Hamburg team has become stronger rather than weaker in terms of personnel after every non-promotion. Six of the seven newcomers previously played for a first division team.
The question is therefore whether the structure of this team is still sustainable. Whether it was enough to part ways with Walter, but also make the next attempt at promotion with the pillars of his team such as Captain Schonlau, Jonas Meffert and Ludovit Reis. “We know this situation from previous years,” said Schonlau. That’s why they really wanted to avoid what had happened since the Magdeburg game.
dpa/SUF
