Nigel de Jong, Paolo Guerrero, and now Guy Dimmel Demel (I wrote this post at 2AM, Guy–sorry about misspelling your name) are out of the match. Marcell Jansen is questionable but may not play. I’m not even going to write about guys like Thimothee Atouba, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Romeo Castelen any more–none are expected back this season, certainly not Atouba. Demel’s absence means we likely see Jerome Boateng at right back, with Dennis Aogo still manning the left side unless Jansen can go. With Guerrero now out, Thiago Neves looks to get his big chance to get back into the starting XI. He’s going to have to really show me something–I’m just not sold. Regulars Piotr Trochowski, Alex Silva, Ivica Olic and Mladen Petric are all fit and ready to go. Late word this morning that Nigerian wunderkind Macauly Christantus will dress with the first team as well.  Here’s hoping we get to see him play.

Dortmund come into the match unbeaten in their past five Bundesliga matches, but have only 1 victory in that streak–sounds a LOT like Hamburg from last spring.  Jurgen Klopp gets Tamas Hajnal and Nelson Valdez back Saturday, and ever-dangerous striker Kuba returns from nose surgery as well. Tinga is doubtful with a strained abdominal muscle (maybe our Brazilians aren’t very good-because they have 2 names . . .). Other than that, Klopp’s side are pretty healthy.

There are lots of good subplots to this match and it feels a little like a grudge match. The two best stories going are the Petric-Zidan trade and its underlying issues (great story on that trade at the BVB website), and the prolonged manager search at HSV last season which kept Jurgen Klopp in a lurch while he was at Mainz. Interviews with Klopp this week have him saying that he is not upset at HSV for jerking him along, but his choice of words lead me to believe that he is still REALLY pissed off.

Bottom Line: Each time Die Rothosen have lost an away match, they have returned home to make a strong statement about themselves. This one is going to be a cracker:  Make mine HSV 2:1 victors scratch that:  I’ve lost all confidence in anyone (besides shell-shocked Frank Rost) in the HSV defense stopping the other side. Let’s make it 3:3.

Quick passes:

•Mladen Petric is still angry BVB didn’t put up more of a fight for him when HSV swooped in this summer.

•Speaking of Petric, neither he nor Zizzou (ex HSV striker Mohamed Zidan) feel that this game is a duel between the two of them. Yeah, right. No, seriously. They just want to pound the hell out of their former clubs.

•Jonathan Pitroipa has the best hair in town. Hey, I just write the blog-I don’t make this stuff up.

•And if anyone reads this far down in the post, you’ll be happy to know that winter has come to the Midwest. There was an accumulation of snow this morning when I awoke and snow continued throughout the day. Woopee! (I’m not a really big fan of winter).

Euro News:

VDV was sublime for Holland versus Italy. ‘Nuf said. A couple more performances like that and he will get a nice fat payday from a big club come July. Can’t leave out Nigel de Jong who also turned in a very strong performance in support of Holland’s (previously suspect) back line. And lastly, Joris Mathijsen put in a brilliant day’s work on the aforementioned back line for Holland, holding Bundesliga scoring champ Luca Toni goalless. David Jarolim played a solid if unspectacular match for the Czech Republic in their 1-0 victory over host Switzerland. Ivica Olic was flying all over the field and really the only Croatian player who continued to press the attack after being fouled in the box in the early minutes of Croatia’s 1-0 victory over co-host Austria. And lastly, Piotr Trochowski was an unused sub in Germany’s 2-0 victory over Poland.

Player News:

Frank Rost is going to be given a contract extension, as well he should. He broke the club records this past season for fewest goals allowed (26!) and most clean sheets (13!!). Rost wants to end his career at HSV and the club is set to give him an extension through 2011. The club had previously talked with Rost’s agent, but weren’t willing to commit to an extension until after the new manager had been selected. BMJ (that’d be new manager Big Martin Jol) immediately gave his approval to the idea and a deal is in the works.  Thoughts: While the guys in front of him deserve some credit for those numbers, the fact is that Rost was the best ‘keeper in the Bundesliga last season. Period. I felt that he should have been selected for the German team for the Euro, but what do I know?

Khalid Boulahrouz wouldn’t mind coming back to Hamburg. He was sold to Chelsea following the 2005/06 season, and spent the past season loaned out to Sevilla. Another story claims that Marseilles are hot for Boula and will likely make an offer after the Euro. We’ll see.

A follow up to an earlier post, nobody–and I mean nobody, not even his old mate Jurgen Klopp and his new club Dortmund–wants embattled striker Mohammed Zidan. The club is ready and willng to sell, and it was speculated in many places that Zidan would be reunited with his ol’ buddy Klopp now that Klopp was managing in the 1. Bundesliga. It’s just that HSV can’t get anyone to take him off their hands. Oh, and he’s a real team guy too.

It’s been a little more than week since HSV’s final match of the season, and sadly, of the Huub Stevens Era. Behind a hat-trick from Peruvian party-boy Paolo Guerrero, a brace from possible short-timer Ivica Olic, a penalty from VDV and a sweet long range shot from Piotr Trochowski, HSV took it to an underwhelming (and clearly uninterested/uninspired) Karlsruhe at the ‘Bank. Great match for HSV all in all, and begs the question–why haven’t HSV been able to play this way all year? A week and a half later I still can’t figure it out. All (uninjured) hands were available for the final match. A couple of noticeable absences: Atouba (Huzzah!-maybe somebody will take him off our hands!) and Vincent Kompany, who was REAAAALLLY in Huub’s doghouse. A change of managers at HSV is probably the best thing for his career right now.

With the victory, HSV secured 4th place in the B’liga table on 54 points, and with it, automatic UEFA Cup qualification. To me it’s little consolation when Hamburg were in a Champions League spot as recently as late March.

A postmortem on the season is in the works and can be summed up in 7 words: what-could-have-been, and EFF’ing-January-break. I have felt for a long time (well, since January) that the long layoff this winter really affected HSV negatively. I also think that the length of the UEFA Cup for HSV (through the Intertoto Cup qualifying, group and knockout stages) was just a whole lot of football and took its toll.

TEAM NEWS
*Paolo Guerrero is being targetted by Wigan for a transfer. I had seen Olic’s and (of course) VDV’s names bandied about, but this was the first time I’d heard Guerrero’s.

*Jerome Boateng and Eric Choupo-Moting both suffered knee injuries while on international duty for Germany. Boateng’s is less serious. He will be sidelined with rest and rehab for 4 weeks. Choupo-Moting’s torn cartilage injury required surgery; he’s out for at least 3 months and will miss most of the pre-season training this summer.

*Ivica Olic may not transfer to Portsmouth, but Newcastle. Olic finished the season as HSV’s leading scorer.

*Mohammed Zidan may be moving on after a less-than-stellar first season at HSV. Now that Jurgen Klopp is manager at Dortmund, speculation is that he will bring in Zidan. Klopp was like a father to Zidan while at Mainz. HSV paid a €7M transfer fee for Zidan last summer.

*First Arsenal, now Fiorentina.

*HSV are negotiating the transfer of Freiburg midfielder Dennis Aogo. Aogo is currently on duty with Germany’s U21 in Denmark, and will travel to Hamburg for a physical following the match. Aogo made his B’liga debut with Freiburg at the ripe old age of 17.

*A large contingent of HSV players are competing in the upcoming Euro 2008, and surprisingly, Piotr Trochowski is one of them. Since he had not garnered a lot of PT lately at HSV, it was speculated that he would be among the final cuts for Germany. Offside Bundesliga boss Jan is following Germany at the Euro blog.

Last week in this space, I speculated that the club’s directors hadn’t talked to Ex-Spurs boss Martin Jol about the post in a while. Turns out I am pretty prescient. Jol has been contacted about the job and he is the club’s second choice after Gerrard Houllier. Houllier, whose contract as Technical Director of the French Football Federation expired 30 April,  continues to be the leading candidate for the post and contract negotiations are reportedly on-going. Here’s the rub:  Should contract talks with Houllier fall through, HSV are screwed. Why? Because Martin Jol is negotiating with Twente (Enschede) of the Eredivisie about their open position and is reportedly quite close to a deal. Twente, you know, the job that Fred Rutten just left. . . B-T-W, Rutten recently revealed he was set to take the HSV job, but an ongoing disagreement between Dietmar Beiersdorfer (sporting director–wanted Rutten) and Bernd Hoffman (managing director–wanted would-be-Dortmund/current-Mainz trainer Jurgen Klopp) and the subsequent confusion and delay prompted him to accept the Scalke job. 

I find it pretty remarkable that of the 3 clubs in the Bundesliga set to hire new trainers (Bayern, Schalke, Hamburg), 2 had the deal done-and-dusted within a matter of days, and in Schalke’s case, in 5 days. So now we sit and wait to see if Houllier can convince his wife that Paris isn’t all that grand and that life really is better in Hamburg.  Let me know how that works out. . . Why worry, right? This guy and this guy are available . . .

Oh, and HSV travel to Rostock to take on Hansa. Hamburg downed Hansa 2:0 in November.  Vincent Kompany is out with a thigh injury. Paolo Guerrero is nursing a calf-injury but looks to play. David Jarolim returns from suspension and will be in the midfield. This will allow Guy Dimmel to return to his right back position and let Jerome Boateng replace the ever-worthless Timothee Atouba. I can’t WAIT until they get rid of his sorry ass.

I am not going to give a prediction here, as lately when I do so, HSV do the exact opposite. Let’s say this in closing:  If we can’t go out and pound a helpless patsy like Hansa, we don’t deserve to be in European competition. Period.