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.

For the eleventh (!) year in a row, HSV travelled to Berlin and left town without a victory, and for the ninth time in those eleven years, we left town with out a point. Not that the match officials were helping us or anything. It seems that on the winning goal, the referee’s assistant raised his flag to notify the referee of a foul (Mathijsen on Voronin), but then lowered the flag after Die Rothosen had stopped for Hertha to take the free kick. BUT, the referee never stopped play, as is his perogative, and Hertha, to their credit, kept playing, resulting in a Domvchiyski goal for the hosts. This link has a very good sequence of photos showing the play–you can make up your own mind.  Here is the story behind the photos (keep in mind that the source is one of the local Hamburg papers). HSV almost broke the curse in stoppage time as Jonathon Pitroipa launched a rocket which just struck the crossbar as time was about to expire.

Bad news on the injury front:  Nigel de Jong did not play as he experienced some pain in his sore knee prior to the match. He will undergo an MRI on Monday to determine whether there has been further damage to his sprained ACL (anterior cruciate ligament–the ligament on the inside of your knee joint). Really bad news:  His injury looks to keep him out for an extended period. Yikes. Good news on the injury front: Glass Joe Marcell Jansen started the match and finished uninjured!  Bad news: David Jarolim picked up his fifth yellow in Bundesliga play and now must sit out the Bremen match on 23 November. 

Here’s the lineup that took the pitch:

Rost

Demel   Reinhardt   Mathijsen   Jansen

Alex Silva    Boateng

Trochowski   Jarolim   Olic

Petric

Quite a bit different than the lineups I was throwing out there prior to the match. Interesting to see Jerome Boateng playing in the midfield, especially partnering with Alex Silva. I’d like to see that combination a little more often.

Anything positive to take away from another defeat? Well, besides the relative health of the squad, the fact that they held the opposition to *only* 2 goals, and despite a 191-second lapse in concentration, they outplayed Hertha for most of the match.

 It will be interesting to see how BMJ rallies the troops after this one. . .

Oh, and the Hamburg Offside celebrated its first anniversary on 13 November. So have a Holsten and celebrate! Skol!

Why Hamburg? I travel there on business regularly (from the US Midwest) and have grown to love the city and the side, at first as a way to make small talk with my German colleagues, and now as a true supporter. I knew that I was in deep when I recently attempted to translate a Bild interview with HSV star Raphael Van Der Vaart, in which I ultimately learned (guessed?) that he wasn’t going to transfer in January.

So, I am ready to go with match previews and reports, player news, transfer gossip, and the occasional photo of Van Der Vaart’s stunning wife, Sylvie.

I am really excited and proud to blog about Hamburg and want to do my part to keep up the high quality reporting of the Bundesliga teams on The Offside. To paraphrase Abby of the Herta Berlin Offside, I may not be the most knowledgeable (HSV) fan out there, but I am ready to go with my big screen, my GolTV and whole lot of love for HSV and the Bundesliga.