Maybe they should just ask Neil Warnock for advice at Hamburger SV. Warnock is a notorious roughneck coach from Sheffield, England, but he would be most valuable to HSV as a kind of middleman. Because Warnock knows where the most sustainable success strategies are developed: in his wife’s dreams. A famous story is that Mrs. Warnock dreamed before a game that the right-back in Mr. Warnock’s team was converted into a striker and scored an important goal. Warnock then deployed his right-back Danny Butterfield as a striker – and in the real league game he not only scored one goal, it was a fabulous hat-trick within six minutes. “He’s crazy,” Butterfield said afterwards about coach Warnock.
And so to probably the biggest madness in German football, HSV.
Hamburg lost 0-1 in the second division top game against Holstein Kiel on Saturday; The use of black magic or at least a winning vision conveyed by Mrs. Warnock seems unavoidable so that someone in the Hanseatic city still believes in promotion. Or better: to still believe in something that concerns this once proud, traditional club. Kiel, the second division table leader and long ridiculed by Hamburg as a northern provincial club, moved ahead by a solid twelve points thanks to the victory. Fortuna Düsseldorf, which occupies the third relegation spot, is six points and 16 goals short of goal difference – with four games left, even institutes for applied mathematics would have to develop wild formulas to make an even wilder comeback seem possible.
On the pitch, HSV exposed themselves with unsightly regularity
After all: Steffen Baumgart, the coach who took up his job in February with a clear mission for promotion, has finally arrived at the club from which hardly anyone gets out unscathed. Given the overall situation, he was a “realist,” said Baumgart, who decided not to deploy his right-back as a striker. To do this, the coach replaced top scorer Laszlo Benes, who was out due to injury, with Levin Öztunali, who has been there more for representative purposes than for scoring goals since his carefully staged return last summer. Öztunali is a HSV homegrown product and the grandson of Uwe Seeler; This personality therefore also tells a lot about how this team was put together and how the club worked: a radiant, maudlin image was always sold to the outside world. But on the pitch, HSV exposed themselves with unsightly regularity.
It is an exciting anecdote of this season, which is so rich in anecdotes, that on Saturday Lewis Holtby, of all people, prepared Kiel’s winning goal (59th minute/Tom Rothe) and the Hamburgers were once again reminded of their own helplessness when they were sent off (73rd minute/yellow-red). led. With the majority, the Hamburg team didn’t develop the slightest hint of danger, but they increased the desperation in the stadium with every inaccurate pass and every clumsy duel, until desperation eventually turned into malice. No wonder, because a kind of sketch about the past years of drought materialized directly in front of the unfortunately tried HSV fans: Holtby, something like the face of relegation at HSV in 2018, should now be promoted again in front of HSV given the situation.
He was handed over in 2019 by Hamburg’s sports director Jonas Boldt, who has now tried out almost every experimental arrangement for this club: Under his leadership, HSV tried it with the leisurely coach Dieter Hecking, with seasoned warriors like striker Simon Terodde and goalkeeper Sven Ulreich, with one “Path of development” under the incorrigible offensive advocate Tim Walter, until he recently ended up with the snappy Baumgart via a detour. None of it worked – at least not in such a way that its core task of organizing sporting success can be considered fulfilled.
“Now only a miracle will help,” said Hamburg striker Robert Glatzel, looking very disillusioned. Because Glatzel also probably noticed what couldn’t be overlooked on Saturday: Baumgart had been acquired by Boldt in a quick move for a quick promotion mission, but instead of a so-called “coaching effect” it is now showing week after week that a team and her superior are obviously living dramatically at odds with one another. As soon as leading players like defender Sebastian Schonlau or midfielder Jonas Meffert take a stand after defeats, you can hear their former coach Walter speaking in every syllable. Baumgart did bring some order to the sometimes irritating chaos of his predecessor – but what was lost was the inspiration and abrasiveness that had always been on Walter’s personal list of merits, even among Walter’s harshest critics.
The future of HSV sports director Boldt appears questionable
Sports director Boldt has never left any doubt that he is doing his best to act as a responsible boss, but during his almost irritatingly long service by HSV standards, his instincts have apparently deserted him: unpleasant decisions were made when they were no longer made were avoidable; Small successes were sometimes publicly exaggerated into great triumphs. And it can now be assumed that those responsible have lost track of things in this maze of alleged success reports: At an extraordinary general meeting, for example, the otherwise excellently-reputed CFO Eric Huwer made the remarkable statement that his fellow board member, unfortunately, was always measured in terms of “short-term success.” become. Huwer, a man of numbers, should know full well that Boldt has been working in the Hanseatic city for half a decade now. That’s half an eternity at conventional clubs, at least a whole time at HSV. Boldt’s continued employment beyond the summer can be considered almost impossible.
At the aforementioned general meeting, a 30 million euro loan from investor Klaus-Michael Kühne was quickly converted into equity, which says a lot about HSV’s possibilities compared to its second division competition. So finally a number: If Kiel and city rivals FC St. Pauli were promoted, HSV would remain behind as the club with the longest membership in the lower house. Like a real second division dinosaur.