Northern Derby Week for HSV – Step 1 Successful

With last Sunday’s Hamburg derby postponed due to torrential rain, the DFB had to reschedule the HSV – St. Pauli match. The rescheduling just happened to put that match on a Wednesday, smack-dab in the middle of two other northern derbies for HSV – Wolfsburg (played this weekend), and Werder Bremen next weekend. So now Hamburg are in the midst of a very exciting and important week!

Each of these teams are in the lower part of the table, and theoretically should be wins for Hamburg, but we know that nothing has come easy for HSV this season, and you kind of have to throw any predictions out the window when it comes to derbies. Both teams will be fired up for each game, so anything can happen. Luckily, Hamburg have gotten things started off on the right foot, with a 1-0 win in Wolfsburg on Saturday. One down, two to go!

All of Hamburg’s 3 wins in 2011 have been by very narrow 1-0 margins, including Saturday’s win in Wolfsburg. This doesn’t exactly instill a lot of confidence in the team, but I thought they played a solid game on Saturday, and I was quite happy with the result. For one thing, it was great to finally see HSV with their full complement of defenders! Guy Demel, Heiko Westermann, Joris Mathijsen, and Dennis Aogo are all back and healthy. Add that to Frank Rost’s stellar play, and you can see why the were able to keep a clean sheet. In fact, I thought the whole team looked to be playing a pretty defensive style, only going in the for the attack when they were able to intercept some passes. One of those turned into a penalty kick goal for Mladen Petric. Ruud van Nisterooy played a lovely early cross to Petric, who chested it down inside the box and was taken out from behind just as he was getting ready to take the shot. I think he would have scored it anyway, but he was able to slot home the penalty just to make it official. Here’s a replay of the foul and subsequent goal:

After the goal, there wasn’t a lot of action, but Hamburg did have a couple of chances – a golden opportunity for RvN that couldn’t beat the keeper, and a couple chances for Ben-Hatira that were squandered. Other than that, the HSV defense kept things tight, and Frank Rost saved their bacon the odd time a ball made it past them.

Other thoughts on the match:

I’m pretty much done with the Ben-Hatira praise now. He had 2 or 3 opportunities with the ball at his feet in the penalty area this week and he couldn’t get a decent shot off for any of them. He was working hard on the right wing, but I kept thinking to myself that Armin Veh had Pitroipa, Trochowski, Elia, and Guerrero all on the bench who could have replaced him. That’s a lot of good players to pick from, and while trying to hang onto a 1-0 lead, I would have liked to see Troche maybe come on as a defensive move (mainly for him to try to keep the ball on the ground and kill time), or bring on another attacker to increase the lead. Instead, Veh subbed off RvN for Guerrero, which didn’t lead to anything, and Jansen for Elia, who had 30 seconds of lively activity immediately after coming on, and then disappeared. We got the right result in the end, but sometimes I wonder if the coach is seeing what we can see on TV. Ben-Hatira was not playing the way he did in the first couple of matches in 2011, so maybe a more experienced guy should get a chance instead.

Having said all that, it could be that Veh was saving some of the guys for Wednesday’s match at home against St. Pauli. This is the biggest derby of the 3, and he needs the best possible squad to prove that HSV are the better Hamburg team. Not to knock St. Pauli though – they have been on a good run in 2011, and are steadily climbing away from the relegation zone, so I think this could be a hard-fought match this week. Armin Veh pretty much has his full complement of starting players to choose from, so I think it should be a good lineup on Wednesday. It’s nice to see that he has options at most positions now. Here’s my choice for the St. Pauli match:

GK: Rost
Def (R-L): Demel, Westermann, Mathijsen, Aogo
Mid (R-L): Trochowski (subbed for Pitroipa 60th min), Jarolim, Ze Roberto, Jansen (subbed for Elia 60th min)
For (R-L): van Nistelrooy, Petric (one of them subbed for Guerrero 75th min)

Something like that. I’d like to see Trochowski get in this match somewhere, and I even wonder if he should replace Ze Roberto in central mid in order to save Ze for the Bremen match. For my lineup above I’m going with solid defensive play through the midfield with crosses coming in from Jansen and Troche. Then after 60 minutes, they inject a blast of speed on the wings from Elia and Pitroipa to really wear down the St. Pauli defense. At least, this is how I would play it on FIFA 11!

There’s some other options of course. Kacar has served his 1 match suspension, so he could certainly feature in this match as a measure to protect a slim lead (which could very likely happen). Heung Min Son and Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting are available as striker options too. I hope to see Armin Veh give all of these guys some playing time in the next couple of weeks.

I hope you get a chance to catch the Hamburg Derby on Wednesday and that the right team will win. Go HSV!!!

Category: Bundesliga, FC St. Pauli, Hamburger SV, Match Preview, Match Recap, Team News, VfL Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen