Bring on Bremen, Redux

By: Chris | May 6th, 2008

Chalk one up for the success of avoiding predictions. Hamburg have the Northern Derby mid-week against arch rival Werder Bremen at the Bank (See how I’ve taken to calling the ground by some sort of nickname based on the ground’s naming sponsor? It’s quite the thing to do in American sports journalism. And if I were speaking this instead of writing it, you’d be able hear the sarcasm dripping from my words.)

Bremen (Boo! Hiss!) come to the fight second in the Bundesliga on 57 points, and are pretty much locked into one of the two remaining CL spots, while our Hanseaten heroes have blundered their way back to fourth on 51 points following the drubbing of Hansa Rostock (1:3) this Saturday past. The final tally against Rostock could have been 6- or 7-nil, but Paolo Guerrero and VDV both missed a couple of gimme goals in both halves, while poor Joris Mathijsen had the misfortune of knocking one in for Rostock late in the game. Bremen, fresh off a 2-0 victory over Cottbus, again have the services of all-world diver/complainer extraordinaire Diego, having recovered from a thigh injury. Out, though, is Thorsten Frings, who picked up his fifth yellow card of the campaign last week. Hamburg will line up without Romeo Castelen (knee surgery–out indefinitely), and Timothee Atouba, who flat-out sucks (thank the Almighty Huub’s finally ~~benched~~ dropped his sorry ass; is my contempt for all things Atouba apparent?), Mohammed Zidan (flu–there’s a Paolo Guerrero joke in there somewhere) and Collin Benjamin, who apparently has an injured toe. Same article says that Kompany has trained this week and will be available. Hmm.

Derby? Check. Champions League spot within reach (albeit baaarely)? Check. Time for some payback? Double check. In keeping with last week’s successful policy of not making a prediction, I won’t throw out a guess as to the final score. And my dear friends over at GolTV have somehow decided that a match between newly-crowned champs Bayern and Bielefeld will be more entertaining and draw more viewers than HSV-Bremen, so no TV in the US.

Team notes:

*New manager Martin Jol is bringing Zeljko Petrovic as an assistant. He will be taking Markus Schupp’s position as Assistant Manager. Petrovic is currently the manager of the Dutch second-division side RKC Waalwijk. The rest of the current staff–goalkeeping coach Klaus Reitmaier and fitness coach Markus Gunther–will be retained.

*Leading scorers Ivica Olic and Raphael van Der Vaart broke reeeeaaaaallly long goalless streaks.

*A nice story that did my heart some good today–the club are thinking about parting ways with Timothee Atouba. One problem: NO TAKERS! HA!

*Some speculationthat Kompany, Collin Benjamin, Juan Pablo Sorin, and Mohammed Zidan may play in the Bremen match–a sure sign of desperation if there ever was one.

*Piotr Trochowski has 2 games to play himself on to the German national team for Euro 2008.

*VdV, Nigel de Jong and Joris Mathijsen were all named to the provisional Dutch team for Euro 2008.