Wrong decision? Van der Vaart opens up on HSV return | OneFootball

To this day, only one HSV signing has been more expensive: Rafael van der Vaart’s return in late summer 2012 electrified the fans.

After three years at Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur, the prodigal son returned to the Volkspark shortly before the end of the transfer window. With generous support from patron Klaus-Michael Kühne, HSV—who had only narrowly avoided relegation a few months earlier—managed to convince van der Vaart to come home. The supporters were thrilled, and the transfer fee of €13 million (only Filip Kostic was more expensive in 2016 at €14 million) raised expectations accordingly.

Van der Vaart himself could hardly wait either: “It’s a dream for me to be in Hamburg. I had my best time here and I also missed HSV.”

Photo: IMAGO

Around 14 years later, however, the Dutchman now views his decision very differently. “It sounds strange today, but I think it wasn’t clever to go back to HSV,” he recently explained on the Bild podcast Phrasenmäher. “At Tottenham I was top, top, top. I wanted to help HSV and thought: It can’t be that they get relegated. My heart beat for HSV, but from a sporting perspective it wasn’t a good decision.”

Second spell at HSV: Van der Vaart draws a bitter conclusion

Still, van der Vaart said, not everything was bad by any means. He would even give the first season of his second HSV stint a grade of 1. “The team was stuck at the bottom of the table and, in my view, lacked quality at the start. Then we really pushed things forward. With guys like Adler, Diekmeier, Jansen,” the former fan favorite explained. In fact, the Rothosen finished the 2012/13 season in a strong seventh place. Van der Vaart contributed five goals and 10 assists.

After that, however, things went downhill. In both 2013/14 and 2014/15, HSV only just avoided the first relegation in the club’s history via the playoff. Van der Vaart, too, was no longer able to match the level of his earlier days and left his beloved club in the summer of 2015. His final verdict is therefore sobering: “The last 1.5 years were difficult. Almost getting relegated as captain with a club like that—I have to give myself a grade of 6.”

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