After missing a promotion: continue at high risk for HSV

DThirteen victories in 17 second division games, tactically demanding football with the best remaining defense and defense against counterattacks, successes with promoted teams in Darmstadt and Heidenheim: FC St. Pauli and its 30-year-old coach Fabian Hürzeler had it all. lips. It is impossible to verify if St. Pauli had a better chance of relegation than HSV, as has been heard over and over again in Hamburg over the past few days. The Paulians could have been a more equal opponent with their consistent defense that puts two or three players in the ball carrier’s pincers. HSV, on the other hand, relied on a well-known and well-established style of play with an emphasis on offense and possession in the extended season – how could it be otherwise with dogmatic manager Tim Walter?

The risky system culminated in a clash with Stuttgart, whom Hamburg lost 6-1 after two games, more than any other team since relegation returned in 2009. If you take out partial ratings, such as a good first half hour at 1:3 on Monday night, HSV had no chance and now faces its sixth year in the second division.

No chance, because the defense was not reliable either individually or as a group. In Hamburg, they knew about this for a long time, because the team caught the decisive defeats of the season in the second division of the middle class in Karlsruhe, Kaiserslautern and Magdeburg in a similar way. Walter allowed the system to be adjusted only in the very last part of the season, which secured third place. In the extension of the season, this is no longer enough against the strong individualists Stuttgart, and therefore the question remains whether a more pragmatic coach would not lead this team to the Bundesliga. One in which there are fewer spectacles and more sobriety. Stuttgart saved itself with such a coach.

In Hamburg, despite the warning signs of the last two years, Tim Walter and his risky football must continue. Board member Jonas Boldt said that on a hot night after 1:3: “We have built a foundation that is very, very good for the club and we are a little closer to promotion.” The composition was not successful – unlike last year.

There are plenty of reasons to try a new manager and board of directors in 2023/24 after Boldt’s four failed attempts to get Hamburg into the Bundesliga. But there is no majority in the Supervisory Board for this. In addition, Boldt and Walter know the fans behind them: they enthusiastically celebrated the team’s victory on Monday night at the Volksparkstadion, just like in previous weeks. If there had been a whistle, the opinion of decision makers would probably have been different.

Source: Frantfurter Allgemeine

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