A road victory? I call bullsh*t . . .

By: Chris | December 12th, 2008

I know, I know, but it’s true. Hamburg defeated FC Köln 2:1 at the RhineEnergie Stadion on Sunday–HSV’s first league victory away from home since a 2:1 victory over Cottbus on 5 October(!). By all accounts, Köln controlled play for most of the match, but one half of the Croatian Combination (Petric) knocked in a brace with his melon in the first half for hard fought, well-earned three points.

No first hand analysis from yours truly this week–the match was not on TV in the US and both of the feeds I was watching crapped out before Petric’s first goal. . .

More bad news from the training room: Alex Silva has ”ruptured” ligament in his ankle (a bad sprain, in layman’s terms) and has been shut-down for the remainder of 2008. This is one of those times where the long winter break is beneficial to us. BUT, this leaves the defense woefully short of bodies, with Bastian Reinhardt and Thimothee Atouba also out. Colin Benjamin should see time in Alex Silva’s spot . . . he’s the only defender that’s fit.

I don’t know about y’all, but Alex Silva is really growing on me. I was ecstatic when we traded for Petric, pleasantly surprised when we bought Marcell Jansen (though his reputation at Bayern for being injured often was well earned), intrigued when we bought Thiago Neves (but now am having second thoughts), and relieved when we bought Alex Silva for the hijacked Luciano Monzon. Of the 4, Petric has been everything we could have wanted and more, scoring 7 goals in 10 starts for HSV so far. Alex Silva, after a brief learning period, has adjusted to the Bundesliga magnificently, and is being held out by BMJ as a model to Thiago Neves (who so far has to be considered a flop). Despite being on crutches for a while, Alex Silva has a bounce to his step–his former club, São Paolo, are Brazilian champions.

So we head into the final league match of 2008 against Eintracht Frankfurt at the ‘Bank, and at this point, I think we need to say that things are going pretty well, despite all the injuries HSV have suffered. I think that the results from the first few weeks of the season got our hopes up a little too high, and now the side know that nobody’s going to hand them the title. By the start of the 2nd half of the season, we can count on the return of Alex Silva, Reinhardt, and most importantly, Dutch international Nigel de Jong. We all saw how this side performs when all the players are fit; staying healthy is a bit of a cliché in sport, but for HSV it is paramount to any chance they have at the CL. And for me, that’s the real prize. If we won the title, I’m not sure what I’d do with myself, but making the Champions League (even through qualifying) is a reasonable expectation for this year’s team. It was a reasonable expectation of last year’s team, too, but VDV’s pending transfer, the manager search and a petulant Vincent Kompany pretty much derailed that team. Huub Stevens had lost the dressing room by the time the players returned from the winter break and Beiersdorfer and Hoffman didn’t do us any favors by stubornly prolonging the search (although in retrospect, it was fortunate that they picked BMJ and not Fred Rutten).

Preview of the Frankfurt match to follow shortly.