Hamburg take on Dortmund today at the ‘Bank. And the injuries keep piling up.
Nigel de Jong, Paolo Guerrero, and now Guy Dimmel Demel (I wrote this post at 2AM, Guy–sorry about misspelling your name) are out of the match. Marcell Jansen is questionable but may not play. I’m not even going to write about guys like Thimothee Atouba, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Romeo Castelen any more–none are expected back this season, certainly not Atouba. Demel’s absence means we likely see Jerome Boateng at right back, with Dennis Aogo still manning the left side unless Jansen can go. With Guerrero now out, Thiago Neves looks to get his big chance to get back into the starting XI. He’s going to have to really show me something–I’m just not sold. Regulars Piotr Trochowski, Alex Silva, Ivica Olic and Mladen Petric are all fit and ready to go. Late word this morning that Nigerian wunderkind Macauly Christantus will dress with the first team as well. Here’s hoping we get to see him play.
Dortmund come into the match unbeaten in their past five Bundesliga matches, but have only 1 victory in that streak–sounds a LOT like Hamburg from last spring. Jurgen Klopp gets Tamas Hajnal and Nelson Valdez back Saturday, and ever-dangerous striker Kuba returns from nose surgery as well. Tinga is doubtful with a strained abdominal muscle (maybe our Brazilians aren’t very good-because they have 2 names . . .). Other than that, Klopp’s side are pretty healthy.
There are lots of good subplots to this match and it feels a little like a grudge match. The two best stories going are the Petric-Zidan trade and its underlying issues (great story on that trade at the BVB website), and the prolonged manager search at HSV last season which kept Jurgen Klopp in a lurch while he was at Mainz. Interviews with Klopp this week have him saying that he is not upset at HSV for jerking him along, but his choice of words lead me to believe that he is still REALLY pissed off.
Bottom Line: Each time Die Rothosen have lost an away match, they have returned home to make a strong statement about themselves. This one is going to be a cracker: Make mine HSV 2:1 victors scratch that: I’ve lost all confidence in anyone (besides shell-shocked Frank Rost) in the HSV defense stopping the other side. Let’s make it 3:3.
Quick passes:
•Mladen Petric is still angry BVB didn’t put up more of a fight for him when HSV swooped in this summer.
•Speaking of Petric, neither he nor Zizzou (ex HSV striker Mohamed Zidan) feel that this game is a duel between the two of them. Yeah, right. No, seriously. They just want to pound the hell out of their former clubs.
•Jonathan Pitroipa has the best hair in town. Hey, I just write the blog-I don’t make this stuff up.
•And if anyone reads this far down in the post, you’ll be happy to know that winter has come to the Midwest. There was an accumulation of snow this morning when I awoke and snow continued throughout the day. Woopee! (I’m not a really big fan of winter).