Break’s over! Back to work you lot!

By: Chris | October 17th, 2008

As I have written previously, I like international football, but not necessarily friendlies or qualifying matches. That said, I did watch Wednesday’s match between Germany and Wales. Oh baby.

And wouldn’t you know that the only goal of the match was a gem by our own Piotr Trochowski. He picked up the ball on the left side of the box, juked a couple of Welsh defenders out of their jocks, and then launched an absolute howitzer that rose over the outstretched arm of the Welsh keeper Wayne Hennessey that found it’s way to the top corner of the cage. Sublime. Fo’ shizzle.

But thankfully, we get club football back this weekend and HSV have Schalke ‘04 at the ‘Bank (the only 1. B’Liga match on Sunday–on GolTv in the US). HSV have a number of key injuries coming in, particularly on the defense. Marcell Jansen is out (up to 6 weeks), as is Nigel de Jong (likely 2-3 weeks). Thimothee Atouba is questionable, but trained both Thursday and Friday, and looks fit for the match. Either Guy Demel or Colin Benjamin will stand in for De Jong. Demel started at right back in the last match versus Cottbus, and may stay there. The large unknown on the back line (other than Jansen’s health . . .) is the status of Jerome Boateng. Last year’s young star has become a persona non grata with the new coaching regime, UPDATED: It’s pretty difficult to get up to date info on your side when you have your head up your ass and I can’t figure out whether BMJ will play him at right back and move Demel up to De Jong’s midfield spot, which would make the most sense to me (but I don’t get paid millions of Euro to manage the side). Benjamin played the midfield in his early days with HSV, so it may very well be Demel and Benjamin and I may very well have my head up my ass.

Here’s how I think they will line up on Sontag:

Rost

Boateng Demel Reinhardt Mathijsen Atouba

Trochowski Jarolim Benjamin Olic

Guerrero

Petric

Schalke come in with injury woes of their own (and what’s the point of linking The Offside Schalke blog when it hasn’t been updated since early August?). Christian Pander is still suffering from a calf injury (severe enough that he underwent an MRI to determine the extent of the damage) and is out. Rafinha and Kevin Kuryani are also recovering from injury but reports on Bundesliga.de have them training with the side and they should be available. Kuryani has his own issues and this is his first Bundesliga match since “announcing” his retirement from international football. Here’s hoping it’s a distraction.

Quick news:

•To recap–I have my head up my ass.

•There’s a nice story on the Bundesliga’s English web site today about HSV’s ascention to the top of the table, with some interesting factoids–not real hard statistics, just tidbits that make you go “hmmm”.

•Dutch international defender Demmy De Zeeuw of Eredivisie side AZ Alkmaar has reportedly agreed to terms with HSV and will transfer to Hamburg in January. Thoughts: Adding quality depth to the back line with Alex Silva’s struggling to adapt to the German game and Marcell Jansen’s glass knees. I think that Thimothee Atouba will probably take the money and run in January and De Zeeuw may be his replacement. Interestingly, De Zeeuw came on for Nigel de Jong in Holland’s WC qualifier after the latter suffered his knee injury.

•Joris Mathijsen has signed a contract extension through 2012 20012. His extension, along with Frank Rost’s, is a good sign that the directors are paying to lock up the core group of players. Look for Nigel de Jong and Ivica Olic to ink extensions as well.

•Piotr Trochowski’s recent good great superb form has not gone unnoticed by The Little Two of the Big Four. (A quick aside: MoPo really pissed me off on this one. The original story was on the site this morning when I started writing this post. By the time I came back [I usually write at work, and from time to time, I have to actually do my job], the had removed all of the HSV stories dated 17 October. Not everything before 18 October, mind you–only the stories from the 17th. Stories from the 16th are still on the main Sports page. It took me about 45 minutes to find the story because I couldn’t remember where I saw it when it wasn’t on MoPo anymore. But I digress.)

•From the Oh Sh*t Department: Late word that Mladen Petric missed training Thursday and Friday with a gastrointestinal ailment. If he’s can’t go, I think we see Guerrero move to the front, Olic back him up and Jonathon Pitroipa at Olic’s original spot. Same story says Atouba is not 100% fit, “more like 70%” according to Thimothee. Thiago Neves turned up with a thigh strain on Friday, and there is an outside chance Jerome Boateng may be available Sunday.

•Final diagnosis on De Jong’s knee injury: Torn ligament. OK, time out. Unless he’s torn the posterior cruciate ligament (an injury he could play with once swelling and pain subsides), he’s going to be out a whole lot longer than 4 weeks. It’d be more like 12 months if he’s injured the medial collateral ligament or the anterior cruciate ligament. My guess is that we have a very poor translation here and he’s strained a ligament–recovery from an injury of that sort would be in the 4 week range. Oh, four weeks sees Nigel out for the Schalke, Hoffenheim, Stuttgart and Dortmund matches with his likely return set for 23 November versus Bremen (boo! hiss!).