Bizarre after another 0-5: HSV point to progress | OneFootball

The bare numbers make for disastrous reading: after the 0–5 against Mainz, HSV also suffered a 0–5 defeat at RB Leipzig and remain bottom of the table after three matchdays, without a point or a goal.

Even so, after the final whistle, the Rothosen felt they had identified one crucial difference from the previous week. Above all, captain Nicolai Remberg faced the criticism. “Feel free to tear us apart, but you won’t break us,” the midfielder made clear, according to Mopo. As far as he was concerned, the only thing this match had in common with the Mainz debacle was the result. “We were much better today,” said Remberg. “I stand by that, and I’ll keep standing by it. We put a few goals past ourselves again.”

In fact, HSV did show a response in Leipzig, at least at times. Even before the break, the team created a few attacking moments and kept the game open for a long time. After the restart, Hamburg even came close to making it 1–2, but missed several promising chances. It was only after Willi Orban made it 0–3 in the 72nd minute that the team fell apart. Within a few minutes, goals number four and five followed.

HSV captain confident: “We’ll fight our way out of this”

Head coach Merlin Polzin also did not want to paint everything in a negative light. “Before the game, I told the boys that it was very important to show a different face,” the 35-year-old explained. And that was exactly what his team did, even if a 0–5 naturally feels “shitty.” He had already assured his players in the dressing room: “We’re incredibly united.”

Photo: IMAGO

Veteran Yussuf Poulsen saw the game in a very similar way. Against Mainz, they had been “outclassed in every aspect of the game”; this time, by contrast, there had only been “individual phases” “where we weren’t sharp enough and didn’t make good decisions.”

For Remberg, the main thing now is to look ahead. The key, he said, is to take with them “the positive things, like the way we came out of it and created a few good chances for ourselves.” Giving up is out of the question for the captain anyway: “We’ll fight our way out of this. No matter what happens.”

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