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?

Brazilian international Ze Roberto appears to be on his way to Die Rothosen–get this–via free transfer. The soon-to-be-ex-Bayern midfield star had been negotiating a new deal with the Bavarians but the sticking point of the deal was that Ze Roberto wanted a two-year contract and Bayern were only offering one year. His agent promptly turned to HSV and said, Hey, are you interested? To which Herr Hoffmann most likely said Hells yeah! 

Ze Roberto will get his two year deal with an option for a third from HSV at around €4m per annum, which is steep for a guy who is 35.  BUT . . . this is one of the top midfielders in the Bundesliga who has been capped for mighty Brazil 83 times. So the high salary is offset by the fact that HSV are not paying a transfer fee–his contract with Bayern expired on 30 June.

Other News: 

Eljero Elia of Twente is still on the wish list of HSV, but the sticking point in the transfer negotiations is the fee–Twente want €12m and HSV are offering €8m . . .

Jerome Boateng opened some eyes at the U21’s as a central defender and his agent has been contacted by the Special One and representatives of Inter. Boateng, to his credit, has publicly stated he’s staying put.

And finally, a fond birthday wish to Hamburg Offside fave, goalkeeper Frank Rost, who turned 36 yesterday.

Die Wölfe have made a €9 million offer for Petric, he of 20 goals in 41 matches this season.  This is all necessitated by Milan’s flirtations with Edin Džeko.  Naturally, Petric, his agent, and HSV management all replied “Fuhgeddaboudit.” So far.

But what happens when Wolfsburg comes back with an offer of €14 or  €16 million, or more? They have that kind of cash to splash around now that they are in the Champions League next fall.  Didi Beiersdorf was a bit more coy when that question was posed to him. His response? Let’s see the offer on paper before we decide what we are going to do.  Wolfsburg, for their part, have a second option lined up:  Luca Toni.

Petric was a key acquisition for HSV last summer, and with the departure of Olic, I would find it very difficult to believe that HSV would let one of two remaining strikers on the roster be sold. But I thought that about Vincent Kompany and Nigel de Jong, too.

As football fans, I think that Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch should be mandatory reading (in fact, I will make it mandatory reading for all of the Hamburg Offside’s readers [both of you]–I feel like a university professor now or something). I like love the book so much, that more than once, as soon as I get to the end, I start reading it again. One of the primary theme’s of the book is that non-supporters cannot possibly understand the emotional connection that a supporter has with their side and how much that connection dominates true supporter’s daily lives.  Because in the end, this connection we make with “our” sides is an obsession.  I know what you’re thinking:  In the immortal words of Herb Tarlek, How does this affect me?  Well, if you are anything like me, you have been walking around in a depressive funk since Saturday’s 0:1 home defeat to Köln/Cologne. Nobody, but nobody, understands why I am so damn, well, blue. No one in my family knows I write this blog (OK–occasionally write this blog)–they just think I’m a depressive sort who has his moods. I don’t think they’d understand that a German football (Ne: soccer) team recently blew their last gasp chance to play yet another year in a crummy, second-rate European competition, and in doing so, eliminated *any* chance they had of signing quality players in this summer’s transfer market. 

My mental state has been on a slippery slope since the Pokal loss to freaking Bremen on penalties, and the later admission by BMJ that he doesn’t practice penalties. Now you’ll forgive me, I am not a big time football manager. In fact, the highest level of football I have ever coached is my twin daughters’ U10 team this past year (and I am not very good–we are 0-0-9 heading into our next and final match; I won’t even think about telling you what our goal differential is. Oy. To my credit though, none of the girls on my squad have ever played organized soccer before this year, and last week, they held the opposition to a scoreless draw in the first half before finally succumbing 1:2.) The point here is that even though I coach girls U10, my team practices penalties EVERY WEEK. We end our last practice each week by splitting the team up and having the two groups compete against each other. SO WHY DIDN’T HSV CONVERT ANY OF THOSE F’ING PENALTIES? Sure, Tim Wiese stood on his head for a couple of saves, but shouldn’t it have been a bit closer than 2-4? And why did Jerome Boateng take the second penalty and not Pitroipa or Trochowski?

I was a bit more upbeat following the first leg of the UEFA Cup semi-final that saw HSV victorious 0:1, with that all important away goal. I remember saying to myself, “Self, this is the year. Yeah, stinking Bremen knocked us out of the Cup, but we’ll get even here,” only to have the Hanseaten break my heart by giving up 3 away goals to Werder in the return leg. By the time we played them again in the Bundesliga, I was shell shocked and burried my head in the sand. I couldn’t bear to watch them lose again.

The victory over Bochum was little consolation and as previously mentioned, the defeat to Köln/Cologne sent me over the edge. There’s no more Intertoto Cup as a means of qualifying for the Europa League this year (as we did in 2007/08), so unless Dortmund drops points to ‘Gladbach (unlikely, but Marko Marin says he will help Hamburg out–and in case you haven’t heard it or read it, Marin’s nearly assured summer transfer to HSV has been hijacked, by, you guessed it–FREAKING BREMEN!), we are out of European competition next season.

Both Collin Benjamin and Guy (”don’t spell my name Dimmel”) Demel stayed in Hamburg as the side travelled to Manchester Tuesday–they are still nursing thigh injuries.  A bigger question though is the availability of Alex Silva, who is rehabbing a torn hamstring. Alex Silva did not travel with the squad on Tuesday as he remained in Hamburg for a “fitness” test with the trainers. He did travel to England Wednesday, though, and is in the squad for tonight’s match. My guess is that Jol will not play our steady Brazilian with the high number of matches in the coming weeks. That and the fact that HSVII defender Kai Fabian Schulz also travelled to Manchester cements it for me that Alex Silva will not be used in anything except the most dire emergencies.

Here’s one hack’s attempt at a starting XI:

Rost

 Boateng    Gravgaard    Mathijsen    Aogo/Jansen*

 Jarolim     Aogo/Jansen*

 Trochowski    Pitroipa

 Olic    Petric

*Either Jansen or Aogo will lineup at left back and the other will line up in the midfield with Jarolim. Flip a coin if you want, but my guess is that Aogo starts at left back.

The last second loss to Stuttgart on Sunday (which I admittedly did not see) makes me think that the lads are tiring a bit, and if you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I want nothing more than HSV to play in the Champions League next season. So if something has to go, let it be the DFB-Pokal or the UEFA Cup. Let’s concentrate on the Bundesliga. With our crappy goal differential, we are essentially a point behind anyone we’re level with in the table and will need all the help we can get.

Bottom line:  City have not played well as of late, but they are very strong at home. HSV looked tired in their last Bundesliga match, and the lack of depth due to injuries will take its toll soon with the number of matches to be played in a very short amount to time. That said, HSV dominated the leg in Hamburg, and if not for the heroics of Shay Given, City would have been on the wrong end of a Barcelona-esque result (maybe 5 or 6-1).  I’ll give City credit for playing at home and their brilliant keeper could possibly steal the match. If Robinho decides to show up, he may have an impact on the result, and I don’t have word as to whether former HSV stud Vincent Kompanyreturn from injury this week. Don’t discount that a Martin Jol managed side has never, ever lost to Manchester City (6-0-0 with Spurs, 1-0-0 with HSV). Hamburg have too much for City, but City is tough at home.

SWAG prediction: 2:2, with goals from Robinho and Stephen Ireland, and Trochowski and Petric. Let’s get it on.

On with the list. And, again, please accept my apologies for the dearth of posts this past month.

When last we checked in, HSV were preparing for a visit from the now-mighty Wolfsburg at the ‘Bank. When the dust settled, gone was HSV’s undefeated record at home in all competitions the league (duh–we lost 0:1 to Ajax on Thanksgiving [November]) as Wolfsburg defeated Die Rothosen 1:3 in a match that wasn’t as close as the score would indicate, on a brace from Grafite (who the Hamburg Offside simply cannot stand). That result left HSV in a traffic jam for second place on the table.

Following the defeat to Wolfsburg, Hamburg took on lowly SV Wehen of the 2. Bundesliga in the DFB-Pokal (and by lowly, I mean LOW–at the time of the match, they were dead LAST in the 2. B’liga). HSV went through the motions and came away with a 2:1 victory, after which keeper Frank Rost prophesized (and I’m paraphrasing), If we play this shitty in our league matches, we’re going to get throttled, regardless of who we play. You know, like ‘Gladbach. Who we play Saturday. Well, Rost proved more than prescient because HSV went on the road and had their asses handed to them 4:1. Marko Marin was sublime in his–dare we dream?–audition for HSV, with a nice assist to Rob Friend on the game’s first goal and the final nail in the coffin with a penalty on our oracle Rost. The only good thing to take away from this match was that it seemed  to serve as a much needed wake up call to HSV. Or so we thought. At least I thought so.  In the interim, Hamburg drew arch rival Werder Bremen (Boo! Hiss!) away for the semi finals of the Pokal

HSV are still alive in three competitions–the league, the Pokal, and the UEFA (ne: Europa) Cup. After finishing off Nijmegen in the first knockout round, HSV drew Turkish giants Galatasaray in the round of 32. The first leg was played on 12 March at the ‘Bank and Hamburg played a less than spectacular match, failing to take full advantage of 10-man Gala for most of the 2nd half, allowing the Turks to leave town with a 1:1 draw and an ever-precious away goal (and I take exception to the author’s suggestion that there were 30,000 away supporters at the match; the ‘Bank seats 57,000 TOTAL, and they away supporters had one small section on the lower deck–a more likely number is 3,000).

The following Sonntag, HSV welcomed Cottbus to town and a visit from the relegation strugglers was just what the doctor ordered. Bayern-bound Ivica Olic pounced on the visitors 32 minutes in, and Piotr Trochowski sealed the victory with a lovely goal from about 25 yards out in the 39th minute. HSV kept 10 men in front of the ball for the entire second half and Cottbus could muster nothing more than a couple of extreme range shots.

Which brings us to the return leg of the UEFA Cup. There are few more initimidating venues for visiting football clubs than the Ali Sami Yen Stadium in Istanbul. With HSV playing the return leg on the road, and having conceded an away goal in the home leg of the tie, the prospects for a treble this season looked mighty, mighty bleak. And things did not look any better once the match started. Galatasaray started off the scoring with a penalty by Harry Kewel following a mugging by Jerome Boateng on Milan Baros in the area at the 42′ mark. Baros was not going to be denied this night, as he knocked home an Arda Turan poke with a nifty little lift over the charging Frank Rost just after the restart. Things looked really, really bad for HSV.

But providence smiled upon the Hanseaten and Peruvian party-boy Paolo Guerrero with a blast from another time zone to the top left corner over ‘keeper Morgan De Sanctis. And he wasn’t finished. A scant three minutes later, Guerrero shredded the Gala defense before sliding another goal past De Sanctis, drawing Hamburg even, and giving them 2 away goals for good measure. As if that weren’t enough, Olic sealed HSV’s advance to the quarterfinals with a lob goal right at full time. The amount of heart this side showed to win this match when they were down 3-1 on aggregate in one of the most difficult stadiums venues in Europe cannot be measured. To me, this will be the match we point to when we look back at the turning point of this season.

Up next for Hamburg was perennial contender Schalke 04, except that Schalke aren’t contending this season. Summarily bounced from the CL, and then the UEFA Cup, Schalke are having a rough go of it this year. So much so that their collective performance had already cost sporting director Andreas Muller his job, and the prospects for gaffer Fred Rutten weren’t looking much better. So what did Hamburg do? They put the hammer down and trounced Schalke 1:2 in match that wasn’t that close. Both goals were struck by Guerrero, whose price for a contract extension with the club has gone sky high (his current deal runs through 2010 and the club was looking to lock him up for another 2 years). And, Rutten, too, was shown the door shortly following the HSV defeat.

In the meantime, the draw for the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup has taken place, and Hamburg have drawn Manchester City, a club with which we already have more than one connection. In fact we have two. Two former faves of the Hamburg Offside, Vincent Kompany and Nigel de Jong, now ply their trades at Citeh, and the Citizens snuck into the quarters on penalties over Aalborg. Kompany is now playing in the midfield opposite De Jong and has been quite successful.  Really looking forward to this tie. By the way, should HSV prevail over City, we would play the winner of the Bremen-Udinese tie.

And finally, HSV dished out a little more payback for those 3 3-goal defeats we suffered in the Hinrunde, with a 1:0 victory over suddenly mortal Hoffenheim on Saturday past on a goal by speedster Jonathon Pitroipa in 28th minute.

Well, that’s it for the recap. Thanks again for your kind words whilst I was away. I intend to be back with a post about injuries and who looks to be in and who’s out come this summer, and a quick HSV-City preview before Thursday’s match.

HSV come in to tonight’s match following a pretty convincing win (3:1) over the other Munich side (that’d be 1860) on Tuesday with a hat trick from Munich bound Ivica Olic. Meanwhile, the Bavarians are flying high themselves following a 5:1 demolition of VfB, in a match that wasn’t that close.

When these 2 sides last met waaaaaaay back in August, Bayern had been struggling, had a number of injuries (of particular note were Toni and Ribery) and were playing their first Bundesliga match under Jurgen Klinsmann.  Fast forward 5 months and it’s smooth sailing for Bayern, who are presently second in the 1. Bundesliga table on 35 points, have advanced to quarter finals of the DFB-Pokal, and made it through to the knockout stages of the Champions League. There’s plenty of talk of a treble in Munich these days, but I don’t see anybody knocking Barcelona off in the CL (or United for that matter. But I digress. . .).

Contrast that with HSV, who, at the time: Had plenty of their own missing men (via injury and transfer, notably VDV and a pouty Kompany, who was just returned from the Olympics); were playing their first B’liga match under Jol; and had yet to sign now-leading-scorer Petric.  The match ended 2:2 with Hamburg having fought back from a 0:2 deficit with goals by Guerrero and Trochowski (PK). It was a great result for a short handed Hamburg, and one we will be very fortunate to repeat tonight versus a fully-manned Bayern.

Because Olic is suspended for tonight’s match, Paolo Guerrero looks to start up front. Jan opined in a comment on the last post that BMJ prefers to have Guy Demel start at right back over Jerome Boateng (due to the former’s offensive potential), and maybe due to his history of playing against Ribery. I would like to see Marcell Jansen move to left back and replace Dennis Aogo (who was Atouba-esque, circa 2007/08, against 1860), pair new guy Marcel Ndjengs with David Jarolim in the DM,a nd put Hamburg Offside fave Jonathon Pitroipa with Piotr Trochowski on the wings. The good news is that we do now have Petric up front.

Bottom line–HSV can’t afford the poor defensive play tonight they showed at times against 1860.  I am always the optimist, but we will be fortunate to leave the pitch tonight with a draw. SWAG Prediction: 2-2, with goals from Trochowski and Petric.

That’s all well and good, but what should HSV do with the dough? I’d love to hear your comments on:

•Replacement for De Jong. The name we continue to hear is Mark van Bommel of Bayern, but lately we also are hearing Christian Paulsen of Juve, *and* newly trialed Marcel Ndjengs (formerly of ‘Gladbach). The old Demy de Zeeuw rumor from the fall doesn’t appear to have any legs, so I don’t know what to make of it. Personally, I’d love to see Van Bommel.

•Replacement for Olic. My good friends at the Abendblatt say that Serb striker Milan Jovanovic of Standard Liege would be a good fit and is available for around €7M. I have *no* idea on this one.

•Any other moves before the 30 January match at the ‘Bank with Bayern. I think we need some additional depth on defense. When Alex Silva comes back, he may take De Jong’s spot (he was outstanding there while De Jong was rehabbing his knee) and we may be looking for more defense. There is another rumor swirling around that Rafael van der Vaart may be coming back to the fold, but it wouldn’t be until this summer.

Bear in mind that Alex Silva is out until approximately the first week of February and that Atouba is done for the year.

MoPo opines that De Jong and Hamburg should take the money and run.  I am really confused about how I feel about this. For one thing, I think we’ve got a side that can challenge for a CL posiition–seriously, Hertha is only ahead on goals, so any slip up by them and we are in the qualifying spot, and how will Ibisevic’s knee injury affect TSG’s chances of hanging at the top? For another, I am just getting over VDV’s and Kompany’s transfers (and now Olic’s)–I don’t know if I could take it if De Jong leaves too (he has always been one of my favorites). BUT, the money the Citizens (rather, the sheikhs) are offering is almost as much as the fees paid for Kompany and VDV combined.  And HSV have already targeted Mark van Bommel (what is this Dutch roulette?),  Christian Paulsen of Juventus, and old target Demy de Zeeuw as a potential replacements, and have already trialed former ‘Gladbach midfielder Marcel Ndjengs. Not too shabby. Could HSV qualify for the CL with either MVB or Paulsen manning De Jong’s midfield spot? Probably.

Quick Hits:

•Yesterday was BMJ’s 53rd birthday. Cheers!

•If you haven’t heard, Olic and Carlos Eduardo got into a fight in the friendly versus TSG (HSV won 2:0). Seems Eduardo took offense to Olic’S very hard charge when he was without the ball near the touchline. Both guys were given straight reds and now are left waiting to see if the DFB will suspend them.

•Alex Silva’s hernia surgery was successful.