The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

By: Chris | May 21st, 2009

This campaign had been most remarkable for Hamburg supporters. HSV were alive in all three competitions–the Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal, and the UEFA Cup in mid-April–and looking to finally get that no-silverware-since-1987 monkey off our collective back. We truly looked as though we belonged on the big stage in Europe among the top clubs, the perennial powerhouses of the Champions League.

As football fans, I think that Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch should be mandatory reading (in fact, I will make it mandatory reading for all of the Hamburg Offside’s readers [both of you]–I feel like a university professor now or something). I like love the book so much, that more than once, as soon as I get to the end, I start reading it again. One of the primary theme’s of the book is that non-supporters cannot possibly understand the emotional connection that a supporter has with their side and how much that connection dominates true supporter’s daily lives. Because in the end, this connection we make with “our” sides is an obsession. I know what you’re thinking: In the immortal words of Herb Tarlek, How does this affect me? Well, if you are anything like me, you have been walking around in a depressive funk since Saturday’s 0:1 home defeat to Köln/Cologne. Nobody, but nobody, understands why I am so damn, well, blue. No one in my family knows I write this blog (OK–occasionally write this blog)–they just think I’m a depressive sort who has his moods. I don’t think they’d understand that a German football (Ne: soccer) team recently blew their last gasp chance to play yet another year in a crummy, second-rate European competition, and in doing so, eliminated *any* chance they had of signing quality players in this summer’s transfer market.

My mental state has been on a slippery slope since the Pokal loss to freaking Bremen on penalties, and the later admission by BMJ that he doesn’t practice penalties. Now you’ll forgive me, I am not a big time football manager. In fact, the highest level of football I have ever coached is my twin daughters’ U10 team this past year (and I am not very good–we are 0-0-9 heading into our next and final match; I won’t even think about telling you what our goal differential is. Oy. To my credit though, none of the girls on my squad have ever played organized soccer before this year, and last week, they held the opposition to a scoreless draw in the first half before finally succumbing 1:2.) The point here is that even though I coach girls U10, my team practices penalties EVERY WEEK. We end our last practice each week by splitting the team up and having the two groups compete against each other. SO WHY DIDN’T HSV CONVERT ANY OF THOSE F’ING PENALTIES? Sure, Tim Wiese stood on his head for a couple of saves, but shouldn’t it have been a bit closer than 2-4? And why did Jerome Boateng take the second penalty and not Pitroipa or Trochowski?

I was a bit more upbeat following the first leg of the UEFA Cup semi-final that saw HSV victorious 0:1, with that all important away goal. I remember saying to myself, “Self, this is the year. Yeah, stinking Bremen knocked us out of the Cup, but we’ll get even here,” only to have the Hanseaten break my heart by giving up 3 away goals to Werder in the return leg. By the time we played them again in the Bundesliga, I was shell shocked and burried my head in the sand. I couldn’t bear to watch them lose again.

The victory over Bochum was little consolation and as previously mentioned, the defeat to Köln/Cologne sent me over the edge. There’s no more Intertoto Cup as a means of qualifying for the Europa League this year (as we did in 2007/08), so unless Dortmund drops points to ‘Gladbach (unlikely, but Marko Marin says he will help Hamburg out–and in case you haven’t heard it or read it, Marin’s nearly assured summer transfer to HSV has been hijacked, by, you guessed it–FREAKING BREMEN!), we are out of European competition next season.