Bah Humbug–Werder Bremen 2:Hamburger SV 1

By: Chris | December 3rd, 2007

The best of the past weekend’s fixtures found HSV traveling to Bremen for the first leg of the Nord-derby. The match was televised live on GolTV in the US, and though I was not able to watch the live broadcast, thanks to the miracle that is Tivo, I watched it late Saturday evening. Good thing I waited, because if I had watched live, I probably would have been too upset to watch the entire match.

Bremen came out roaring and controlled play for most of the first half. Even when HSV were able to mount an attack, Bremen would thwart it and quickly counter. I am no Werder Bremen fan, but they really put the “beautiful” in the beautiful game in the first half. Ex-Hamburger strike Boubacar Sanogo found the back of the net in the sixteenth minute, but appeared to be offiside from most video replays. Raphael van der Vaart knotted the score in the sixty-first minute, brilliantly lobbing home a horrendous clear by Bremen keeper Christian Vander. But this was Bremen’s day all the way. Just three minutes after drawing even, Bremen scored again. Bremen defender Petri Pasanen drilled a shot low from about 10 meters out and Vincent Kompany tried to get a foot on it to deflect–and successfully deflected the ball to the high corner of the Hamburg goal, just past the outstretched arm of a surprised Frank Rost. A frantic effort by HSV at the end was for naught and the side left Bremen 3 points back of new, if temporary, leaders Werder Bremen.

My thoughts on the match - I thought Bremen were fantastic through the first 25 to 30 minutes and then they eased back a bit and slowly let HSV back in the game. Bremen appeared to be more keen for the action early on and HSV looked weary playing their third match in 7 days. But as the game progressed, it was Bremen who appeared to drain (and who’s to blame them following their emotional win over Real earlier in the week) while HSV realized they were giving away points in the table and really ratcheted up the pressure. I thought Sanogo was offside on his goal; the replays on GolTV showed he was offside but the goal was allowed. That was an odd call as the linesmen were on top of things throughout the match and must have flagged VDV 4 or 5 times (and Olic another 3 or 4). Kompany’s deflection was a back breaker. Frank Rost played very well considering the pressure he faced all afternoon, but he was caught flat footed on that one. The score would have been more for W-B had it not been for the great play of Bastian Reinhardt in the early going. van der Vaart did his part as well keeping up the pressure on the Bremen defense all day; it is going to hurt when he leaves. Torchowski really jump started the push in the first half with several good counter-attacks. The list of key contributors for Bremen is lengthy, but their defense ate up everything HSV threw at them. Mertesacker and Naldo were superb in central defense, and Diego (back from a Champions League suspension) was great early on, and Markus Rosenberg and Daniel Jensen kept up the pressure on Frank Rost. All in all, this was a tough defeat to swallow when the team had a point in hand (on the road!) with its main rival. And to top it all off, there was a lovely bit of rioting in Bremen by fans banned from the match.

Hamburg travel to Zagreb on Tuesday for a UEFA Cup match with Dynamo on Wednesday, their fourth match in 9 days. Both HSV and Bayern Munich have voiced complaints this week about the full schedule, but Bundesliga president Dr. Reinhard Rauball squelched any and all criticism saying the clubs all agreed to the arrangement back in 2005. I hope to have a preview on Tuesday.