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As an eyewitness in the stands, the club idol was able to follow the last haphazard appearances on the field up close.
Sometimes Horst Hrubesch would shake his head, often enough cursing quietly to himself.
And maybe at some point he will have thought that someone like him was missing from the current HSV team.
Someone who can shake things up, who leads the way, who can score goals just as powerfully with his head as with his foot, who never gives up.
The problem: Hrubesch is now 70 years old and is no longer an option as emergency aid on the pitch.
But in a different role: as a savior on the coaching bench.
The ex-striker, who has been the director of the Hamburg youth training center for ten months, was introduced on Monday as the new trainer until the end of the season.
At the chronically restless traditional club, the usual reflexes of the industry had worked perfectly before.
Because coach Daniel Thioune got the promotion favorites less and less on track in the second half of the season and the Bundesliga return project threatens to fail in the third attempt, the 46-year-old had to take his hat off.
Horst Hrubesch on Monday afternoon with co-trainer Polzin during the first training session with Hamburger SV
Source: Getty Images
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The coach, who was brought from Osnabrück for a fee of 500,000 euros before the season, had recently failed just like his predecessors Dieter Hecking and Hannes Wolf because of the HSV's spring blues.
The six-time German champions had negligently gambled away a comfortable lead in the lower house of German football on the home straight since relegation in 2018 - and stood empty at the end of the season.
Hrubesch is now supposed to save what can actually no longer be saved.
He is the 16th coach since 2011.
Hrubesch calls for basic virtues
The new coach wants to get at least a conciliatory season finale with basic virtues. “First of all, it's about clearing the minds of the players. Unfortunately, the team has often played under value recently, ”he said. “We have to do everything we can to straighten out the crap we screwed up.” The team “has a different quality that we now have to bring to the field in the remaining games. I will have a lot of conversations, listen in and try to set a few accents ”.
It seems doubtful, however, whether such an approach will be enough to achieve a major turnaround.
On the one hand, the new savior has just three games left until the end of the season.
On the other hand, the two clubs in front of HSV have already hurried.
Leader of the table VfL Bochum has eight points more than the Hanseatic League, the second Greuther Fürth five points.
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And from behind is Holstein Kiel, which has two points less than the third place in Hamburg, but also has to play three catch-up games.
If things go badly, Hrubesch and his family will get fourth place, which will not be enough for promotion or relegation.
It would be a hat trick in Hamburg: HSV was already there in 2019 and 2020 after the 34th matchday.
Crash in the second half of the season
Sports director Jonas Boldt also had to admit that the trend towards 36 points in the second round and only 16 points in the second half of the season with some pathetic performances on the pitch had increasingly spoken against Thioune. "We have noticed that the dynamic has become dramatic in the last few days and that we are in great danger of straying from our path," he said on Monday at noon.
“That is why we considered it imperative to make a major adjustment here.
Most recently, Daniel's manager was no longer available to this extent.
The relationship between coach and players has shaken more and more.
The conviction was no longer there that the construct with the team and the coach would still work. ”Especially after the 1-1 draw against Karlsruhe last Thursday, he noted Thioune“ how knocked he is ”.
A scene from yesteryear: Hrubesch (left) talking to the killed Thioune
Source: pa / xim.gs/ Philipp Szyza
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After all, Boldt has now found someone in Hrubesch's interim solution who can work with great support from the fans. The 1980 European champion was three times German champion with HSV, scored 132 goals in 211 competitive games and won the European Champion's Cup in 1983. He's a legend in the tumbling club. As a coach of the German Football Association, Hrubesch was European champion with the U21s in 2009 and won the Olympic silver medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
"We will do everything to bring the looseness and fun back," said Boldt. Hrubesch could once again set new impulses. “He has experience. There is not much time left, but he manages it with his positive way. The way Horst and I tick in terms of ambition, we will first make the three games we have as successful as possible. Anything is possible in football, ”said the sports director. Maybe three games are needed to achieve the goals, maybe five - that would mean a successful relegation against the 16th of the Bundesliga. It sounded a bit like optimism on the edge.