IAll cards were gone within a few minutes. Hamburger SV fans bought the entire contingent of the away team for the game at Eintracht Braunschweig on Sunday (1.30 p.m., Sky) this week. More than 3,000 supporters of the traditional club will be there at the start of the second Bundesliga season.
The HSV starts the fifth attempt at promotion. What happened was what the Hanseatic League absolutely wanted to avoid: they established themselves in the second division. The bitter record of the past few years: fourth, fourth, fourth, third – and most recently failed in the relegation, of all things, at the Hertha BSC club, coached by HSV legend Felix Magath, 68.
Now the return to the Bundesliga should finally succeed. For the first time since the relegation in 2018, those responsible have declared the leap into the elite class as the official goal of the season. This time it has to work to get out of the second division. The club goes “all in” to achieve its goal – partly also financially.
“We want to move up,” says Captain Sebastian Schonlau. “It wouldn’t be believable if we were to backtrack now after failing so narrowly last season. That would not suit us.” He was glad that the club had agreed to clearly name the goal. “For us, that means winning our games from matchday one. That is our task. With that confidence, I want us to play as a team. That’s exactly what we have to radiate.”
Northern rivals Werder Bremen managed last May what HSV once missed: the club rose straight back up and let the relegation remain an industrial accident. FC Schalke 04 also made it back to Germany’s top division after just one year in the second division. Now HSV is the only really big club with such ambitions in the league. And the hunted.
“We accept the challenge that we are the favourites,” emphasizes Tim Walter. The 46-year-old is the first HSV coach since Bruno Labbadia (2015 to 2016) to be responsible for two season preparations in a row. As coach of a professional team, Walter has never been with a club for more than one season. But HSV’s motto is: less upheaval, more consistency.
Glatzel was already in agreement with Schalke
HSV has managed to keep its squad together as much as possible. This required a financial effort. Scorer Robert Glatzel, 28, with 22 goals in the league and five in the DFB Cup the central player, had already reached an agreement with Schalke and had two other offers from the Bundesliga, but HSV persuaded him to stay. The transfer of midfielder Sonny Kittel, 29, to the USA also fell through.
Hamburg paid three million euros to Hajduk Split in order to sign central defender Mario Vuskovic, 20, on loan. How long he will stay is questionable: Premier League clubs are apparently interested in the Croatian. With an estimated market value of five million euros, Vuskovic is the most valuable professional in the second division. For Borussia Mönchengladbach midfielder László Bénes, 24, the Hamburgers transferred around 1.8 million euros this summer, for attacker Ransford-Yeboah Königsdörffer, 20, around 1.2 million euros to Dynamo Dresden.
“I’m glad we got the boys,” said Captain Schonlau. “Equally important is that the core of the team and the coaching staff have stayed together. This has not always been the case here in recent years. As a result, we at HSV have been able to start the new season in the same constellation for a long time.”
The team budget is 24 million euros, which is slightly lower than in the previous season. Should HSV fail again at the fifth attempt and not rise, a budget at this level should not be sustainable. A long-term stay in the second division would threaten, a kind of “Bochumization” (VfL played eleven years in a row in the second division).
Felix Magath won the European Cup with HSV in 1983
Source: dpa/Frank Hammerschmidt
“Apart from the Hamburgers, I don’t see any big favorites for promotion. HSV have to go up this time,” says Magath. “I think the chances of promotion for HSV are very, very good. Schalke and Bremen, big competitors, have disappeared from the league. In my opinion, equivalent has not gone down to the second division.
Coach Walter continues to focus on offensive and aggressive ball possession football. “For the first time in a long time we can go into a second season where we know what we’re doing because we know the idea,” says Schonlau.
A year ago, the central defender groaned because it took him two weeks to distinguish between back and front in the new Walter system. From the point of view of the HSV managers, the shortest season preparation since 2005 was enough for a new level this time, the team recently completed a training camp in Styria. “The boys have further refined the game idea,” says Walter.
HSV sports director Jonas Boldt taking a selfie with a fan on the training ground at the Volksparkstadion
Source: dpa/Georg Wendt
But HSV wouldn’t be HSV if everything went smoothly and harmoniously. This week it became known that sports director Michael Mutzel, 42, had to leave the club after more than three years. Sports director Jonas Boldt, 40, had publicly demoted him after last season. Mutzel’s contract is valid until the summer of 2023, and he should receive a high severance payment.
Tensions between Boldt and Wüstenfeld
There are always tensions between Boldt and his fellow board member responsible for finance, Thomas Wüstenfeld, 53. The supervisory board around the chairman Marcell Jansen, 36, recently spoke a word of power: pull yourself together! The ascent mission should not be jeopardized by an internal power struggle. There is a kind of truce in the Volkspark.
“We were very close last season,” says Kittel about the long-awaited promotion. “Despite the setback, we tasted blood. We felt what kind of atmosphere there is in Hamburg when we perform. Every player is eager to finally complete it.”
