After the embarrassingly unsettled climb, the city is big. What remains is the realization that the once large HSV has become quite small.
The monster embarrassment was followed by malice. The Morning post exclaimed the “deepest low point in history” on Sunday evening after the fervently botched rise of Hamburger SV. At the commentator of the NDR it hardly sounded any friendlier: “Whenever you think it can’t get any worse, HSV goes one better.” Only that Evening sheet found a benevolent thought in Corona times: “Fortunately there were no fans in the stadium.”
If you want to move up to the Bundesliga on the last matchday, but then lose 1: 5 in your own stadium against football giant SV Sandhausen, you have to endure criticism, even fierce. Because competitor Heidenheim lost in Bielefeld, a draw would have been enough. “If the door is open,” she concluded Moped, “HSV runs into the frame with force.” Unfortunately true.
In fact, five against Sandhausen has a special place in the recent past, which is full of disappointments. It shows how small the once large HSV has become. If you miss the promotion twice with the supposedly best squad in the league in this way, you are no longer a first division club who is making detours in the second league. He deserves to be a second division team.
Does Hecking stay or does he have to go?
Many in the club then struggled for words. Marcell Jansen, for example, the ex-professional (152 games for HSV) and newly elected president, who had to moderate his first really difficult crisis in office. “Looking for great explanations after such a game is out of place,” said Jansen at Sky. The performance against Sandhausen is “not to be excused”, because you have to “touch your own nose”. They were sentences that would have suited any other HSV misery in recent years.
Coach Dieter Hecking took the blame (“I’m the last one who says I didn’t make mistakes”), but also didn’t skimp on criticizing his players. “We discussed everything,” said Hecking, “and didn’t do any of that.” He complained about the great pressure that undoubtedly weighed on his professionals, who were supposed to correct on the pitch what had gone wrong in the club in recent years. The HSV belongs in the first league, it is said everywhere in the city. “We played under a lot of tension,” said Hecking, “we couldn’t get rid of the nervousness at all.”
Hecking himself had been brought in to help HSV with all his trainer experience (Gladbach, Wolfsburg, Hanover) to climb up. But Hecking did not manage to make a young, mentally challenged team strong at the crucial moments. HSV always buckled when everyone looked at him: in stoppage times against Stuttgart, Osnabrück, Kiel, in the last two season games against Heidenheim and Sandhausen, when one finally fell apart in public.
The coming days will show whether Hecking Trainer can stay (and if he wants to do it himself). His contract would only have been extended automatically in the event of promotion, club president Jansen has not yet clearly positioned himself. So sometimes the declaration of intent by sports director Jonas Boldt applies, who would like to continue working with Hecking – although Hecking would not be the first HSV coach who ultimately loses his job.
While Werder Bremen and Heidenheim meet on Thursday for the relegation first leg, plans for the third second division season have begun at HSV. It is already clear what will happen: there will be a change in the team. Anyone in the leadership team will resign or be kicked out. And patron Klaus-Michael Kühne, sure, he will get in touch from Mallorca and tie further millions of grants to conditions. As in every crisis.
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