Will the dinosaur roar again?

Hamburg want to return to the Bundesliga

After years of failures and almost, one of Germany's luxury clubs is two games away from returning to the top league.

The fans are crazy again, the team is starting to look good and all that stands in the way is one of the club's legendary past players - Felix Megat (21:30, Sport 3)

Inbal Manor

19/05/2022

Thursday, May 19, 2022, 2:00 p.m.

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Summary: Hansa Rostock - Hamburg 3: 2 (Sport 1)

From the moment the sale opened, the tickets were snatched up and within a few hours the Volkspark Stadium in Hamburg became sold out towards the Cup semi-final against Freiburg.

"For the first time since the derby two years ago the stadium will be full," the headlines shouted.

It was not just the corona and the limitations that alienated the audience.

Years of failures, problematic management and the delusional sequence of seasons in which the empire collapsed in the moment of truth, have led to a crisis of confidence.

Hamburg lost in the semifinals 3: 1, but played excellently.

Already that evening, one could feel something different in the air.

The hunt became a hunter.

Hamburg have since won the last four league games of the season and finished in third place, which entitles them to playoff play.

Two test matches, away and home, against the representative from 16th place in the first Bundesliga - Hertha Berlin.

In the previous three seasons Hamburg have been looking for an automatic promotion and finished the season in fourth place.

That is, for the first time since the historic decline in 2018, the "dinosaur" is on the rise.

With tremendous momentum, tradition and returning crowd support, it's hard to bet against Hamburg.

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The madness returns to the stands.

Hamburg fans (Photo: Reuters)

Hamburg is a retired empire.

Six-time German champion, three-time trophy holder.

In the early 80s, under coach Ernest Happel, was one of the top teams on the continent with winning the European Champions Cup (and another loss in the final).

She also won one of the European Cup Winners' Cups and appeared in the UEFA Cup final. She played names like Zeller, Hartwig, Rubash, Keegan, Megat and even Cannavauer. In more advanced years Van der Waart and Jung Min-son also played. Years in the German top league, including 55 years in the Bundesliga from its inception until the day everything stopped.

The famous clock in the stadium in Hamburg marking the continuous period of the team in the Bundesliga was stopped on May 12, 2018. "This is a very painful moment. The club has lost one of the things that made it special," then-president Brand Hoffman said.

There was a sense of end.

This was not just a relegation, but a real breaking point.

Hamburg has come down with huge debts and financial obligations to players and coaches, at an unprecedented low of conduct.

Fans raged in the stands and policemen on horseback were forced to stand on the pitch and prevent them, literally, from burning down the club.

It's hard to say that anyone in Germany was surprised.

Hamburg finished seventh in 2013 and from there came a gradual fall.

Slowly she began to lose her last stars.

First Sun and then Cannes Cologneville, Milan Badel and others.

On the other hand, she wasted too much on players who contributed nothing.

In 2014 and 2015 Hamburg survived the playoffs from the other side.

An away goal against Groyer Firth was enough in the first year and she needed an extension to beat Karlsruhe in the second year.

In the end, luck is over.

Another miracle did not happen.

Hamburg has reached unfamiliar territory.

When a team the size of Hamburg is relegated, the expectation is that they will immediately come back up, get organized, acclimatize, clean up and then, even if it gets a little difficult at first, run over their way back and come back stronger.

It did not happen.

Traditionally, the second league in Germany is equal, difficult and very strange.

Teams don’t run over the league, they harden, stumble, sweat, spit blood and eventually, when the music ends, like in the chair game, someone sits on the chair and someone stays out.

The finish is more critical than the beginning.

Thus, year after year, the pressure collapsed on Hamburg in the decisive moments.

Here is a summary of the previous chapters.

Maybe this time?

Hamburg players celebrate first (Photo: GettyImages, Martin Rose)

Hamburg has left coach Christian Titz and quite a few senior and expensive players even after the relegation.

Titz was replaced at one point by young coach Hans Wolf and the change did well.

In the 26th round, Hamburg led 0-2 over Darmstadt at home in the 16th minute and seemed on the safe path to a slight rise.

What happened next, is just mystical.

Hamburg conceded three goals, lost and went into an inconceivable spin.

She also did not win the next seven games and in the end, finished fourth.

The next summer brought with it cleaning stables.

Most of the precious players have been released and veteran fox Dieter King has been brought into the coaching position.

But the script was almost the same.

Hamburg finished the Corona season with three games without a win and again missed out on third place.

In the penultimate round she conceded two goals in the last 10 minutes at the Heidenheim and a week later snatched a five-pointer at the Mazandhausen home from the bottom.

At the end of that game, the club released an apology to the fans through social media.

Third attempt, fourth coach.

This time Daniel Tion was appointed, who arrived after successes at Osnabruck.

Last season opened with five straight wins and another vibe.

Hamburg looked like a predatory and powerful team with the King of the Second Bundesliga, the contractor of the promotions, summoning Truda.

Then, again, when things started to get real, the results did not come.

Five winless games in April sent Thion home.

Hamburg appointed 70-year-old club legend Horst Robsch as interim coach for three games, but it was already too late and the team finished, again, in fourth place.

Tim Walter took the reins last summer.

Walter was not a player, but recorded tremendous success as a youth coach and was kidnapped by Bayern Munich.

He instructed the Bavarians the group of boys and then first to the reserve.

His achievements arranged him beyond the seniors, first at Kill and then at Stuttgart, from which he was sacked after one round in the second Bundesliga in the 2019/20 season.

His replacement Pellegrino from Terrazzo completed the job and promoted the Stuttgart League.

Walter sat at home for a year and a half until the call came from Hamburg.

He took on one of the hardest jobs in Germany - trying to raise a league club in post-trauma.

In fact, he will try to prevent Hamburg from rising.

Megat in the Hamburg uniform, in Kanbauer looking out from the side (Photo: Reuters)

Hamburg went in the summer for a different concept.

Trudeau left for Schalke and was replaced by Robert Glatzl, a teenage scorer who failed to break through.

Alongside the talented home players, they were looking for cheap youngsters as well as anchors who know the league like Sebastian Schonlau, who also got the captain’s armband, Jonas Specter, whom Walter McKill knew.

Thus arrived Mario Vashkovic, the Croatian stopper from the tightening, the Dutchman Ludovit Rice on a free transfer from Barcelona and the Swiss defender Miro Moheim from St. Gallen.

It was a weird season.

The players teamed up with Walter who is considered an offensive coach who advocates a lot of freedom of action.

Hamburg enjoyed the best defense in the league, the third attack in nature, suffered the fewest losses and led the league in ball possession percentage and accuracy in dedication, and yet it was not stable enough in the results.

At the end of January, Hamburg recorded a 1: 2 derby after a reversal.

In the next round, they defeated the leader Darmstadt 0: 5 away, including a quartet by Glatzel, then added 0: 2 over Heidenheim and stood in a rising position.

The bucket was full.

It remains only to kick him.

Hamburg fell into an unfortunate streak of a lone win in seven games, which even led to whispers around Walter's future, which were immediately refuted by the club's heads.

When Hamburg advanced to the Cup semi-finals a month ago, no one around the club thought there was a chance of even reaching fourth place.

The German media even gave the club a new nickname that roughly translates as "unable to immigrate."

The rise struggle this season included empires like Schalke and Werder Bremen, the city rival St. Pauli, the surprising Darmstadt and at times Nuremberg was also in the picture, but we have already said - in the second league in Germany check the table when the music stops.

It was the loss in the cup that liberated Hamburg.

Maybe it was a game that illustrated for her what could happen if she stopped stressing.

For the first time she went from persecutor to persecutor and it helped her not to suffocate in the moment of truth.

The momentum with which she reaches the pair of encounters against Hertha Berlin is simply enormous - five consecutive victories and 16 goals in total.

Glazel has scored 27 goals so far in all competitions this season.

Sonny Kittel, who played with Almog Cohen at Ingolstadt, led the league in cooking.

there were days.

The Dark Ernest with the Championship Plate and the Champions Cup in 1983 (Photo: GettyImages)

Four days have passed since securing third place until tonight's (Thursday) game in Berlin.

Four days of euphoria.

The fan organizations called on everyone to come to Berlin en masse.

Everyone feels that the giant is a moment before awakening.

"We can do something amazing for the city and the club," said athletic director Jonas Boldt.

"There is euphoria and you can feel it everywhere."

Walter added: "The momentum on our side, we very much want and will not give up. Along with the tremendous support, these elements will play a big role."

Walter was careful not to say the word rise right up to the current pair of games so as not to add pressure to the system and not to repeat what happened in the previous seasons.

Under Walter Hamburg this season she accumulated an amount of points that would have been enough for her to be automatically promoted in her first two seasons in the Second Bundesliga.

Not this time.

Still, athletic director Boldt said this week about his coach: "If we stay together in this constellation,

"It's a blessing to play at this club. Hamburg is one of the hottest clubs in Germany. The infrastructure is great, the conditions are great, the support is exceptional. There are not many clubs in Germany that can offer such a package. Maybe only two or three," defender Tim Leibold was recently quoted as saying.

In general, there is a feeling that quite a few people in Germany - or at least outside the blue side of Berlin - would like Hamburg, for its history and its crowd and everything it brings, back in the Bundesliga alongside the great Schalke and Berman who returned after one season.

The way there is through the pair of games against Hertha by Felix Megat, one of the great symbols of Hamburg, who also coached the team in the past, if by chance you lacked a little nostalgia.

Herta has had a nightmarish season with delusional acquisitions and frequent coach changes.

A dramatic extra-time goal in the final round sent her into the playoffs with negative momentum after scoring a single point in the three final rounds.

Who is the favorite?

There is a statistic that does not play in favor of Hamburg.

In the last 10 years, only two second Bundesliga teams have emerged from the Test matches.

Still, would you gamble against Hamburg?

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