About Eff’ing Time

By: Chris | September 14th, 2008

Every nine years, whether we need to or not, HSV ascends to the top of the table. Alone.

Standings »

	Team	Pld	W	D	L	Pts
1	Hamburg	4	3	1	0	10
2	Bayern	4	2	2	0	8
3	Schalke	4	2	2	0	8
4	Dortmund	4	2	2	0	8
5	Stuttgart	4	2	1	1	7
6	Hoffenheim	4	2	1	1	7
7	Leverkusen	4	2	0	2	6
8	Wolfsburg	4	1	3	0	6
9	Bremen	4	1	2	1	5
10	Hertha	4	1	2	1	5
11	Bochum	4	1	1	2	4
12	Hannover	4	1	1	2	4
13	Köln	4	1	1	2	4
14	Karlsruhe	3	1	0	2	3
15	Mönchengladbach	4	1	0	3	3
16	Eintracht	3	0	2	1	2
17	Arminia	4	0	2	2	2
18	Energie	4	0	1	3	1

You read that right. Hamburg have not been in sole possession of first place since 1999. On the strength of their 3-2 victory over Bayer, and Schalke’s 3:3 draw with Dortmund in the Revierderby, the Hanseaten sit alone atop the table. Yeah, it’s only the fourth week of the season, but still–FIRST PLACE, BABY!

But it was almost not to be. Bayer came storming out (which, by the way, is a developing, and disturbing trend to HSV’s matches) and had goals by Tranquillo Barnetta shortly after kickoff (4′) and twenty minutes later by Patrick Helmes (24′). The turning point of the match came in the 40th minute when Manuel Friedrich was sent off with his second yellow card of the match. Paolo Guerrero scored a header from a set piece taken by Piotr Trochowski in the 36th minute, and the home side went to the dressing room down by a goal and about to be set upon by a visibly frustrated BMJ.

The second half saw HSV come out on the attack , and Thimothee Atouba (of all people!) neatly crossed a ball for an unmarked Ivica Olic in the 51st minute and Olic quickly slotted it home to draw HSV even.

Mladen Petric came on for Olic in the 69th minute and quickly made his presence known. On a nice ball from new transfer Thiago Neves, Petric hammered the game winner in the 72nd minute, and that was all she wrote.

By all accounts though, HSV deserved to lose this match, and would have, if not for the heroic efforts of Frank Rost between the woodwork. The developing trend whereby Hamburg fall behind early only to equalize and draw ahead late in the game is going to catch up with them sooner or later. There clearly needs to be some focus on defense in training this week, ahead of the UEFA Cup tie with Romania’s Unirea Urziceni, and next week’s big match at Wolfsburg.