Holtby on his HSV days: “Love infected me“ | OneFootball

Lewis Holtby ended his career this summer. He made the most appearances for HSV.

Between 2014 and 2019, the now 35-year-old featured in 138 competitive matches under no fewer than eight different coaches. He experienced turbulent, at times chaotic years in which HSV mostly made headlines for the wrong reasons. Even so, Holtby, who looked back on his career in a detailed kicker interview, felt a “brutal connection” to the club.

That bond developed toward the end of his first season, which he began on loan from Tottenham Hotspur and which could also have been his last. After a strong finish under Bruno Labbadia — following spells for Mirko Slomka, Joe Zinnbauer and Peter Knäbel — HSV battled their way into the relegation playoff and edged Karlsruher SC after two dramatic matches (1:1/2:1 a.e.t.). “It hit me like emotional branding, and it never left me,” said Holtby.

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Holtby: “From that moment on, HSV was my club”

“Before Marcelo Díaz stepped up for his legendary free kick, my heart was in my mouth. The fear of being the first to go down with HSV had my throat tightening. Then he puts that ball in, and you feel like you’ve dodged a bullet, like you somehow managed to avoid a fatal shot. It was ecstasy. While celebrating, a huddle formed right in front of the fans, and I could look some of them straight in the eyes. That love, that passion reflected back at me, infected me. Until then, I had never experienced anything so intensely emotional with people. And from that moment on, HSV was my club, come what may,” he said.

What followed was a stable season that ended in tenth place. Holtby, who was signed permanently for more than six million euros, started all 34 Bundesliga matches. He also remained a leader in the years that followed. But HSV once again became a permanent fixture in the relegation battle and were ultimately relegated in 2018. Holtby still stayed: “I had other offers, but I extended my contract in Hamburg because Christian Titz also stayed on as coach, and he had given me back my identity as a footballer. And because throughout the entire club there was this now-more-than-ever mentality that really impressed me.”

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But the second-division season proved disappointing. Titz had to go after an inconsistent start to the campaign. Under his successor Hannes Wolf, Holtby gradually lost influence, which is why the club’s decision-makers around Ralf Becker chose not to extend his contract. “From the outside, some people always blamed me for everything that went wrong,” Holtby lamented. “That really did something to me.”

This is how the early end came about

In the crucial away match against direct rivals Union Berlin, he voluntarily gave up his place in the squad, which accelerated his exit from HSV. “I was hurt. But not out of vanity. In that moment, I wasn’t thinking about myself, I was thinking about the team. I didn’t want to hurt it, I wanted to help it. That’s why I said: take Mats Köhlert instead, a Hamburg lad who had been training really well — he simply had more energy than I did at that moment,” Holtby said.

Just ten minutes later, he said, he went to coach Wolf to take it back. But the decision by sporting director Becker had already been made: Holtby was suspended until the end of the season and, accordingly, did not play another match in an HSV shirt. He did, however, return to the Bundesliga before his former club did, with Holstein Kiel, where the Rhinelander enjoyed a late-career revival. After a year in the Netherlands with NAC Breda, he hung up his boots.

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