If you ask Dieter Hecking if it is scary that the Hamburger SV is currently being praised by all sides, he wonders. "Why?", Asks the coach of HSV.
Well, they say, the HSV was recently something of the village deception of German football. Many laughed at him, some were sorry. But before the derby at FC St. Pauli in the evening in the second division (20.30 clock, live ticker SPIEGEL ONLINE; TV: Sky), there is nationwide encouragement - even from the city rivals themselves. A peculiar transformation.
Hecking does not think that is fundamentally sensational: "At some point there can be good times for HSV," he says in an interview with SPIEGEL. And maybe they just started. If so, then that has to do with the case of Bakery Jatta - but also with Dieter Hecking.
When the 55-year-old learned in May that the HSV is interested in him, he could have imagined better. The HSV was for a successful coach as attractive as wellness holidays on a major construction site. A broken-down club, a ruin.
Make yourself smaller to get bigger
After the first descent of their own Bundesliga history, the Hamburg had gambled the resurgence. It was the typical HSV mix of overconfidence and inadequacy: After the first round ended in the first round, the team played the fourth worst half round of all second division and finished fourth. Coach Hannes Wolf and sports director Ralf Becker had to leave. But Hecking thought, "That's just the right moment, maybe step back to take a step forward." To make smaller to become bigger, that should be the mode from now on.
Half of the team exchanged Hecking and the new sports director Jonas Boldt and also integrated the previously threaded transfers such as David Kinsombi, Jeremy Dudziak and Lukas Hinterseer. In the end expensive, bundesliga experienced players like Pierre-Michel Lasogga and Lewis Holtby were gone. New additions were professionals who had not achieved much: the gifted, but injury-prone attacking player Sonny Kittel (Ingolstadt) or the very talented six Adrian Fein (FC Bayern II).
"In recent years, some players have seen bigger here than the club and we wanted to change that," says Hecking. And with the staff, he and Boldt began to exchange their own self-perception as well.
"We are not bigger than the other second division teams," says Hecking, which means a shrinkage to the size of Heidenheim for HSV. But Hecking sees this pragmatically: "The claim that HSV is bigger is only derived from the successes of the past, but those are years back, and if we think again that we are bigger than the rest, we will be shipwrecked . "
Is that really still the HSV?
So far, the ship is pretty good at sea. After five second-division games HSV is with 13 points there and can take over with a draw or a win against St. Pauli again the championship lead from VfB Stuttgart.
The dilapidated HSV has at least once again got a tight roof and a fresh coat of paint. Not a few fans think suddenly when looking at: actually quite pretty. In a survey of the "Hamburger Morgenpost" recently rated 15,000 HSV fans the work of Hecking to 100 percent as "very good" (84 percent) or "good" (16). And that of Boldt to 97 percent. Satisfaction with the club management? Is that still the HSV?
This reconciliation is also in the case of Jatta. When the attacker from Gambia, who fled Gambia in 2015, became suspicious of identity forgery by the "Sport Bild" in early August, HSV did what he had not done for a long time: he did something right. The club, represented in the public principally by Hecking and Boldt, believed the player and defended him - and at a time when it was by no means certain that the investigation would be stopped).
It sounds hard, because Jatta was accused for weeks and racially attacked (in Karlsruhe), but for the HSV this was also a chance for players to rehabilitate themselves - both internally and externally. And he used it.
Pointy described the former Bundesliga professional Hans Sarpei:
Dear @HSV, how many times have you made it easy for us not to like you? But in the case of #Jatta, you showed what attitude, what respect, what humanity is. I bow to you with the highest respect! @mopo @night @AndyGrote pic.twitter.com/ld5TgTi5q6
- Hans Sarpei (@HansSarpei) September 2, 2019Also from other side there was recognition. Friedhelm Funkel, coach of Fortuna Dusseldorf, said in an interview with Dazn: "That's the best HSV has done in the last five, six, seven years." It went so far that the "Hamburger Abendblatt" asked: "Does the 'lucky' Jatta the HSV to the new St. Pauli?
"All this has made us grow closer together, something has been created during this time," says Hecking about the case of Jatta.
The case Junior Malanda
In January 2015, Hecking experienced how a team went through a tragedy. When Belgian midfielder Junior Malanda died in a car crash, Hecking was in demand at VfL Wolfsburg first as a man and then as a coach. He was able to set up the team and give it a we-feeling. Wolfsburg became Bundesliga side and cup winner four months later.
In difficult moments he has since often asked himself: "What would the human Dieter Hecking do now?", Hecking says. There are two cases that can not be compared. But: "I took the experience of that time with me, which helps me to recognize when I have to be emphatic as a coach."
The former police officer and five-time family man combines rigor with a certain amount of Papahaftigkeit that can give a team in difficult situations stop. Or just a player. In his only statement so far, Jatta thanked Hecking and Boldt in particular: "They were there for me at the most difficult time of my career," wrote the 21-year-old.
Short half-life for cheerful moments
It can not be said that everyone is in the arms of Jatta at HSV. Although Hecking and Boldt boycotted the "Sport Bild" award in mid-August, club boss Bernd Hoffmann and HSV President Marcell Jansen were guests there. This should have caused internal turmoil.
Happier moments sometimes have a short half-life at HSV. When the derby against St. Pauli was won 4-0 in mid-March and the team thought it was back in the Bundesliga in second place, they did not win any of the following eight games and missed the climb.
Dieter Hecking formulates another goal anyway. "Some say that only ascent is a success, I see it differently," he says. "If we can make the turnaround that the HSV is perceived in the end as positive and sympathetic, then that would be a successful season."
