HSV: Starting the second half of the season without a friendly? | OneFootball

On Saturday, HSV will bid farewell to the 2025 calendar year with a home game against Eintracht Frankfurt. However, the professionals won’t have much time to catch their breath.

This is because the first competitive match after the turn of the year will already take place on January 10th at SC Freiburg. This will be followed by home games against Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Mönchengladbach as part of an English week. Therefore, after a 12-day break, the team will return to training as early as January 2nd. Unlike in their second-division days, when the second half of the season always started later, the team will not go to a training camp.

“Unfortunately, there is no time to fly away,” explained coach Merlin Polzin (via Mopo). The decision had already been clear for several weeks. In all likelihood, HSV will also not play an official friendly match. The last time this happened was at the beginning of 2021 due to the pandemic. However, the Rothosen are unlikely to go into the second half of the season without any match practice. The club officials are currently considering an internal match against their own U21 squad behind closed doors.

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HSV facing a hot January

HSV is not alone in foregoing a friendly match. So far, only five Bundesliga teams are actively scheduling friendlies. Among them, HSV’s rivals St. Pauli and Werder Bremen will face each other directly. Polzin’s team, on the other hand, will have just under a week to prepare for the start of competitive matches, most likely in cold Hamburg. Whether any new signings will already be part of the squad remains completely open.

What is certain, however, is that HSV will immediately face three crucial matches within eight days. The first opponent, Freiburg, has developed into a regular participant in European competitions in recent years, but currently holds only a two-point lead. In the following home games, the Hanseatic team can certainly hope for something, given their very positive record at the Volksparkstadion. January will be rounded off with two always heated derbies—at St. Pauli and against FC Bayern Munich.

Photo: IMAGO

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