After penalty shootout disaster: Polzin defends choice of HSV takers! | OneFootball

After the DFB-Pokal defeat against Holstein Kiel, many HSV fans were left puzzled, especially about the selection of the penalty takers. Did Merlin Polzin make the wrong decision?

There were almost dramatic scenes that unfolded late Wednesday evening at Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion. As the fourth of potentially five shooters, 20-year-old Aboubaka Soumahoro stepped up to the penalty spot. The surprise was literally written all over the faces of many HSV fans at that moment. “Why of all people the young Frenchman?” many supporters must have wondered.

After all, the match against Kiel was only Soumahoro’s second competitive game for HSV. Following the 0:5 defeat at FC Bayern at the start of the season, the youngster had been substituted in the 99th minute for Jordan Torunarigha. That he would find himself in such an important situation again that evening was probably something Soumahoro himself could hardly have imagined. The left-footer showed nerves and failed with a weakly taken penalty against Holstein keeper Timon Weiner.

Since teammate Miro Muheim had already hit the crossbar and Phil Harres had coolly converted Kiel’s last penalty, HSV’s fate was sealed. Against the second-division side, the hosts missed out on a place in the quarter-finals and 1.7 million euros in prize money!

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However, what was discussed even more heatedly after the final whistle than the actual result was the selection of the penalty takers. That the young Soumahoro was chosen as a penalty taker in such a critical moment was something many HSV supporters on social media simply could not understand.

The same was true for Sky reporter Yannick Erkenbrecher. The 42-year-old asked Merlin Polzin quite bluntly in the post-match interview why he had chosen Soumahoro as a candidate for a penalty. Polzin replied: “Abou is a great shooter. He practices extremely diligently. In the end, it’s also part of football that we experience such moments. The boy will learn from it.”

But the HSV coach didn’t want to leave it at that. “He’s one of us,” Polzin made absolutely clear, adding: “He took responsibility and unfortunately, today it just didn’t work out.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.