News and Notes redux

Yes, I blog about a team in the Bundesliga. And yes, I travel to the city of said team 7 or 8 times a year for 2-3 weeks at pop. But no, I don’t speak more than a couple words of German (Zwei grosse bier, bitte) . So when I present the news, it’s translated. Whew. Got that off my chest. OK, on to the news.

*A story here refutes the story here about Gerrard Houllier turning down the manager’s post at HSV. Bild’s story says that the story in L’Equipe was premature in it’s announcement that Houllier has turned down HSV. Houllier has an open ended contract as Technical Director of the French Football Federation, and it sounds like he can leave whenever he wants to. He was a candidate for the Newcastle manager’s job in January before ex-HSV legend Kevin Keegan was appointed.  The hitch seems to be twofold:  His wife loves living in Paris; and he has fought for many years to attain his current position with the FFF–it was something of a dream job for him. He has been compared favorably to Ottmar Hitzfeld, and is known for being “nice” to the players without being buddy-buddy to them. 

*Huub Stevens made it to Berlin in time for yesterday’s snore-fest. He woke up late in the match and subbed out Olic and Dimmel, who were the worst offenders amongst the “zombies.”

*The mood in the dressing room after the Hertha match was pretty light and post-game comments were mostly along the lines of we’re playing pretty well, just not scoring (Huub) and we can keep our heads up after this–at least we didn’t lose (Frank Rost). Only Nigel de Jong was realistic, stating: “It was a step back. We wanted three points. Simply, we must make better use of our opportunities.”

*VDV is pissed at Huub for suspending Vincent Kompany.  Apparently, Kompany was suspended last Saturday for speaking his mind about the manager’s tactics, and Huub had no choice but to suspend his expensive star for insubordination. No one has publicly spoken out about the suspension until now. Let’s face it: VDV has nothing to lose for speaking out against Huub. He’ll be gone come August (so will Stevens, for that matter). I think that HSV could stand for Kompany to become more of a leader and be a bit more fiery. But hey, a team that is utterly free falling in the table could use a little internal strife while they try to find their form, right?

Category: Team News

Tags: Team News

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