Oh my freakin' leg!

News today that in-form striker Mladen Petric is out until the Winter Break following an ankle injury suffered in the Hertha match Sunday. So, no, I am not sorry at all the their shitty 3rd string keeper gave away two goals–we’re going to need all the points we can get with both our starting forwards out. Oh, and Petric is having surgery tomorrow in Basel, Switzerland to repair tendon damage. So if you’re keeping score at home, that’s our top 2 strikers both down with injuries until January and February.

So who’s going to fill in? Likely Tunay Torun, who has been playing quite well as of late, and Tolgay Arslan, who has not yet made an appearance this season. More news as this plays out.

•Paolo Guerrero had surgery in my hometown of Denver (Colorado) this week under the skilled knife of Dr. Richard Steadman (actually, Steadman’s clinic is in the alpine resort town of Vail, but hey, who’s keeping track . . .), and the prognosis for his return to the pitch is about 4 months. That, my friends, puts him back in the starting XI by February. Sweet.

•Ze Roberto continues to rehab a bruised ankle and is, in American football parlance, questionable for tonight’s match. If he doesn’t go, look for a midfield of Trochowski, Aogo, Jarolim, and Elia. Guy Demel left the Bayern match with a bruised ankle, after a deliberate (and uncalled) foul by Frank Ribery in the first half. But our man Guy has made a miraculous recovery and was able to train both Tuesday and Wednesday. Look for him to take the pitch at Right Back.

•Talks with in-form striker Mladen Petric regarding a contract extension have broken down. Rumors to that effect last week led to every scout from every “major” (Read: Rich) club in Europe watching Petric versus Bayern. Petric, for his part, says he is disappointed.

•There will be a familiar face to Bundesliga fans in the starting XI for Tel Aviv tonight: Former 1860 Munich and Köln/Cologne midfielder Nemanja Vucicevic signed with Tel Aviv this summer.

Where'd everybody go?

•Only 27,000 tickets had been sold to tonight’s match as of this morning, meaning there will be a LOT of HSV supporters in attendance dressed like empty seats. Everyone at HSV has pointed to this match as a must win, and are pleading with supporters to buy tickets to the match this evening.

•Great story here about the background of Hapoel Tel Aviv, their relationship to Hamburg’s “other” club, FC St. Pauli, and their rivalry with larger local rival Maccabi Tel Aviv. Some 700 Hapoel supporters are expected to attend tonight, along with 200 of their comrades from St. Pauli’s goons Ultras.

Let’s not beat around the bush. The Bayern win was a rousing as the defeat to Rapid was crushing. We need to win tonight to have any hope of advancing to the group stage. With a trip to Celtic Park looming, we need a full three points and no away goals to Hapoel tonight. Remember, this is the same Hapoel who went into Celtic Park and punked Celtic 1:2 on Matchday 1.

One hacks attempt at a starting XI:

Rost

Demel Boateng Mathijsen Aogo

Ze Roberto Jarolim

Trochowski Elia

Petric Berg

SWAG Prediction–2:1 HSV, goals by Elia and Boateng (a really swing for the fences [baseball term], I’ll admit, but he had a hell of a shot in Sunday’s match and I think he’s due).

HSV 1:0 FC Bayern
Petric-72

Having seen the highlights, it seems we deserved the win, besides that shot that just missed/went off the post, most of the good chances were against Butt, who didnt play up to his name (I’ve always loved that name, byyy the way).
Also, it’s nice to hear the opposing coach/Hoeneß talking about how “they deserved more from the game.”
That’s loser talk fellas, you only “deserve” what you get for yourself.
And we got ourselves three more points and another week on top of the world!!! (Of German football).
And we get Hapoel coming into town, which should end better than the Wiener-debakel.

Hamburger SV v Bayern Munchen
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In pre-game news, Ze is going to start or be on the bench, with Tesche replacing him. Olic is coming back to Hamburg for the first time (I wish we had kept him…), and Ze will hopefully get to play Bayern for the first time since he came over to the winning team.

In what i saw of the Osnabrück game (I was watching Lübeck’s hopes get dashed in Konferenz), Tesche didnt impress (Who did…), so lets hope Ze gets healthy, huh?
Seeing as how we’ve done quite well against the top teams this year, I’m not too worried, despite the bad form. Jaro is back, which should help in midfield, and bump the number of ex-Bäyerische in the starting 11 to 3. Stick it to them guys!
Noteworthy: A Bayern win and Bayer loss would be the first time in 497 days that Bayern was on top. Dream come true…
HSV.de says:
Hamburger SV: Rost – Demel, Boateng, Mathijsen, Aogo – Jarolim, Zé Roberto (Tesche) – Trochowski, Elia – Berg, Petric
Bench: Hesl, Tavares, Rozehnal, Pitropia, Castelen, Arslan

FC Bayern München: Butt – Lahm, van Buyten, Badstuber, Pranjic – Müller, Tymoshchuk, Schweinsteiger – Robben, Gomez, Olic

I’m going to go ahead and predict 3-1 for die Hanseaten, with Elia, Troche and Berg scoring the important goals. Der Kaiser seems to agree with me.

Sound off on the match if you can see it; I am following on a GameCast.

We head into Thursday’s Europa League match in Vienna versus Rapid with a couple of big questions. Like, can Marcus Berg fill the rather sizable shoes of injured Paolo Guerrero (in case the Hamburg Offside is your only source for HSV news–and God help you if it is–Guerrero is lost for [most likely] the season with a blown knee, suffered in a World Cup qualifier for Peru against Venezuela. And when did Guerrero get back on the good side of the Peruvian FA?)? Can HSV continue their great run of form against Champions League qualifiers VfB and Rapid? Well, I can answer yes to the first part of the question as Die Rothosen dispatched Stuttgart 3:1 in a match that wasn’t really that close, on absolute blasts by Mladen Petric and my new fave Eljero Elia, and a very handsome goal by Ze’ Roberto in stoppage time. Let me say this about that–Elia seems to me to be the piece that we’ve been missing for so long. He’s a guy with great pace, great finishing ability and some (OK-A whole lot of) flair. My hope is that he and Berg and Ze’ combined can not only fill the scoring void left by Paolo Guerrero, but give us a better goal differential than last year. My two cents for this week:  David Rozehnal started at CD with Joris Mathijsen and did not impress at all. For a big guy, he was waaaaaaay to passive. I think we see Boateng paired with Mathijsen in league and Cup play, and Rozehnal in Europa League matches.

This week HSV travels to Vienna to take on Rapid. Rapid find themselves in the group stage of the Europa Cup on the strength of their 2:2 aggregate defeat (on away goals 1:2) of EPL side Aston Villa.  We face Rapid again in the group stage, but not until Matchday 5 (2 December).

Not sure what else to say at this point, other than I don’t know if I want to start talking about our successes for fear of jinxing the club. But isn’t that a supporter thing to do? I think Nick Hornby would agree.  .   .

I won’t be live blogging the Rapid match, as it happens during the workday in the US, but I will *hopefully* put up a post where we can all sound off on the match.

Thanks for your patience everybody. B-T-W, I am looking for a new wing man, as Evan seems to be missing in action. This is your chance to get in on what looks to be a very memorable season. If you are at all interested, please email Daryl [at] theoffside [dot] com and mention the Hamburg Offside co-blogging position.

Monday past saw Die Rothosen being their Pokal chase with a match away versus 2. Bundesliga side Fortuna Dusseldorf. As Jan mentioned in his Pokal wrap-up, HSV were more Swiss than German in the first half–Swiss cheese, that is. The second half brought some stability and clear thinking to the defense, but Fortuna would not go quietly into that good night, scoring the tying goal in the final 3 seconds of the second extra period. The match went to PKs where Hamburg slotted 4 home, while Frank Rost stood on his head and saved 2 of the 3 shots he faced. Whew.

Yesterday, the return leg of the Europa League 3rd qualifying round took place at the ‘Bank against Danish side Randers FC.  HSV dominated the first leg in Randers the week before, scoring early and scoring often and leaving with an insurmountable 4-nil victory. With advancement to the next round assured, Bruno took the opportunity to field a side of players who had not seen action so far this season, with Joris Mathijsen and David Jarolim the only regulars (and thereby cementing their roles as the irreplaceable guys on our roster–God help us if they get hurt) who started the match. And they played like a bunch of guys who hadn’t played so far this year. Here’s the lineup that took the pitch last night:

Hesl

Benjamin    Mathijsen    Rozehnal    Jansen

Jarolim    Tavares

Castelen    Ben-Hatira

Torun    Berg

The match ended with Hamburg on the short side of a 1-nil decision, but I think it gave Bruno the opportunity to see some of the bench players in a game situation without any negative consequences. For their efforts, they were drawn with French Cup holders Guingamp of Ligue 2. Guingamp is notable not only for being just the second club outside Ligue 1 to win the French Cup, but also as the club that gave current Chelsea stars Didier Drogba and Florent Malouda their starts in Continental football. Here’s Bruno’s take on Guingamp.

And now we get down to business. Sunday, Hamburg take on newly promoted SC Freiburg to start their Bundesliga campaign.  Freiburg dominated the 2. Bundesliga last season, wrapping up the championship and assured promotion by Matchday 31 (pretty damn impressive. . .). Still, you have to believe that HSV are poised to get a favorable result and take the full 3 points.  Following what can graciously be described as a tumultuous offseason, we appear to have the deepest and most talented group that I have seen in my almost 3 years as a supporter.  Here’s the XI I think will be on the pitch on Sunday:

Rost

Demel    Mathijsen    Boateng    Jansen

Jarolim    Ze Roberto

Trochowski    Pitropa

Guerrero    Petric

Bottom line:  HSV gets the season started on the right track. Make mine 0:2 for the HSV, and give me a cold Holsten to wash it down.

Readers, help me out here:  I am pretty sure that beginning in 2010/11, the Bundesliga gets 4 spots in the CL. Am I correct?  This is leading to my season prediction. This is the year we finally make it back to the Champions League. I think the top 3 teams in the league are Bayern, HSV and Stuttgart, and you can throw Schalke and Wolfsburg in for the last CL spot. I have long maintained that more than anything, I want to watch HSV on the biggest stage and see them back in the Champions League, just as I did one night in September 2006 (before I was a supporter of the club), when I watched them get drubbed by Arsenal while in the lounge of the Bexleyheath Marriott in Kent. If we win some silverware along the way, so be it–that’s the icing on the cake.  I say we finish a very close second to Bayern’s first, with Stuttgart ultimately prevailing for third over Wolfsburg and Schalke. What are your predictions?

There really hasn’t been much to report on since the last post (and by the way, I am putting out an APB for co-blogger Evan–I haven’t heard from him in weeks. Seriously, I hope his pic isn’t showing up on milk cartons in Auz. . .), until yesterday and I decided to write two posts rather than one.

What happened yesterday? HSV finally completed the transfer of center back David Rozehnal from Lazio. The deal would have been done a LOT earlier except Lazio’s batshit-insane owner Claudio Lotito wanted a bigger transfer fee than was previously agreed to. The two sides finally settled on €5million. Rozehnal did not travel with the side to Denmark and will likely make his debut Monday evening versus Fortuna Dusseldorf on August 3 in the opening round of the Pokal.

Randers FC are based in–you guessed it–Randers Denmark, and finished fifth in the Danish SuperLiga in 2008/09. They qualified for the Europa League via UEFA’s Fair Play rankings Here’s how that business works:

The three highest placed national associations in the UEFA Fair Play ranking will each automatically gain an extra qualification berth for the First Qualifying Round, providing they have exceeded the threshold of games played, and have a minimum average score of 8.0. These berths will then be allocated to the highest placed club in that association’s own Fair Play league that has not yet qualified for either the UEFA Champions League or the UEFA Europa League.

Randers have advanced by defeating Northern Ireland outfit Linfield FC 7:0 on aggregate in the first round and FK Sūduva of Lithuania 2:1 (agg.) in the second round.

Here’s the likely starting XI for tonight’s match. Don’t worry if you don’t see a new name or a familiar name–I’m getting to that.

Rost

Demel    Boateng    Mathijsen    Aogo

Trochowski    Jarolim   Ze Roberto   Pitroipa/Castelen

Guerrero    Petric

First, I hope that Romeo Castelen gets the nod over Jonathon Pitroipa tonight–dude has been through a shitload of rehab and hard work to get back to playing condition following successive knee injuries.  Eljero Elia bruised his knee and will be out for three weeks.  Marcell Jansen is hurt, too (his ankle), and did not travel with the side. Marcus Berg is just getting to match-level conditioning and was left home as a result. All, with the exception of Elia, should be ready for the Cup match on Monday and the return leg against Randers next Thursday.

SWAG prediction: Make it 3:1 HSV, with goals by Guerrero, Ze Roberto and Trochowski. Who knows–I haven’t seen any of the matches so far. . .

Quick hits:

-David Jarolim was retained as captain; Joris Mathijsen is the deputy.

-Tonight’s match was not going to be televised in Germany; now it is (on HSV TV–go to the club web site).

Meet Marcus “the Mountain” Berg, ex- of FC Groningen of the Eredivisie, and newest member of HSV. The story broke Friday evening (European time) by the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. Berg’s arrival was announced on the German part of the HSV website, but not the English version (Time out:  If anyone associated with the club reads this stupid blog, how about keeping the English version of the club site up to speed with the German side? Is that asking too much?) If you have been following this story, you know that Berg is a true goal scorer, and in the mold of a KJH–equally deadly with his head and his feet. In the past two seasons for Groningen, Berg has tallied 32 goals in 56 Eredivisie matches. Not too shabby.

You know what else is nice? Scooping somebody else for a change, instead of being owned by other Bundesliga bloggers. So I got that goin’ for me. Which is nice.

Next up is to sign another defender and the two names which continue to come up are Philippe Senderos of Arsenal and Rasmus Bengtssen of Trelleborg (Sweden). I’d put my money on Bengtssen if I were a wagering type.

Also, there has been some scuttlebut that VDV *may* be on his way back to Hamburg, and those same stories are quick to point out that the lovely and talented Sylvie has been pushing him for such a move. HSV are even said to be trying to track down a wealthy benefactor to foot the bill for such a move so as not to jeopardize the financial solvency of the club. The problem is not the transfer fee, though, but Rafa’s €4M+ wage packet. Hoffman has said there is no money to bring in VDV, but he is our Prodigal Son and I know that many HSV supporters would welcome him back with open arms.

The Europa League draw was this morning and we ended up with the winner of FK Suduva (Lithiuania) or Randers FC (Denmark). Third round qualifying takes place July 30 (away) and August 6 (home).  Randers won the first leg 0:1 yesterday.

Final thought–Bruno has decided to pick his own captain, which leaves David Jarolim in a tight spot. Jaro is on the wrong side of 30 and plays a position where we have a WHOLE lot of depth (Ze Roberto, Rincon, Tavares, and maybe even Lorik Cana)–is he expendable at this point or am I reading too much into the situation?

Anyone who is interested in the physiological aspects of this injury can follow this link. Knee injuries are not uncommon in most “American” sports (gridiron football, basketball, baseball) so those of us in the States have had some media exposure to this injury, as do many football fans worldwide. Alex Silva’s countryman Ronaldo seems to have recovered pretty well from his two knee injuries, so let’s hope he calls AS and cheers him up. One thing I will tell you, to a man every player that I have read about who recovers from this injury says the most difficult part of recovery is trusting the knee when you need to plant and change direction. Hopefully, AS will recovery quickly and fully and be back on the pitch in the Ruckründe.

UPDATED 8 July, 22:54 GMT–Alex Silva is out for the season. Here’s the story.