And again the time has come: HSV trembles under promotion anxiety in the last match days

The entire week it thumps at HSV supporter Yvette Schielcke: Saturday against Darmstadt it has to happen. « We have to win. It can’t be otherwise. » She broke a deep sigh. « We won’t give it up again? » A little further on, on the training field next to the Volksparkstadion, the selection of HSV is now carrying out the warm-up.

To offer the players the much needed support, the training of HSV is publicly accessible. The weather conditions are excellent. It is 1 May, because of the Day of Labor in Germany, a day off, so that there are almost five hundred spectators along the training field. In the bright morning sun, children run in white and blue football shirts along the boarding, waterproof markers in the attack to score signatures. Schielcke-short blond hair, white-blue HSV-Vest-is there with her nine-year-old son and her husband.

Afstiegs anxiety

The end of the season announces a nerve -ritual ritual for Schielcke and her fellow supporters. Since the relegation seven years ago, HSV, one of Germany’s largest football clubs, tries to fight back to the Bundesliga – the highest level in Germany. Every year Those Rothosen Promotion within reach, but each time it was handed over in the last match days.

And that is also starting to look strong of that in the current season. From the start of the competition, HSV was almost unbeatable. Six games before the end of the competition, the club from Hamburg was still at the top. But at the beginning of April the team of coach Merlin Polzin suddenly started to lose points. HSV was disappointed at home twice, and ten men from Schalke 04 played disappointingly. Traditionally, the Afstiegs anxiety (Promotion anxiety) in Hamburg not far.

Trainer Polzin has been trying to defuse the panic for weeks. « The Volkspark is not a place for doubt, » he said at the press conference last week, the day before the home game against Karlsruhe sc. He then lost HSV supporters with 2-1 in front of 58,000. The leading position in the second Bundesliga had already lost HSV, but now there also seems to be in danger.

Although, in danger? Anyone who wants to promote directly to the Bundesliga must be the first or second. The number three plays for promotion against the number sixteen of the Bundesliga. It is not that far yet; With only three games to play, HSV has three points more than competitor Magdeburg, and also a better goal balance.

HSV is still in its own hands, but the hardened HSV supporter now knows better. « The body wants to, but the head cannot afford it, » Schielcke analyzes, staring at the players on the training field. In short: there we go again. « It is so heavy for us as supporters, it seems to be almost a curse on it. »

Schielcke holds half an eye on the training, and half an eye on her son. Is she afraid it will go wrong again? « Afraid is a big word. But I am skeptical. We have to respect that we have now arrived at this point. Again. »

Another supporter along the fence laughs at the question. « Afraid? What the hell should you still be afraid of if you are a fan of HSV? »

Bundesliga-Dino

Football club HSV, shortly before Hamburger Sport-Vereinknew its greatest successes in the 70s and 80s. The Volksclub became champion of Germany seven times and won the European Cup I in 1983 among former Feyenoordtrainer Ernst Happel I. The club still derived its right to exist at the highest level in Germany. Since 1963, the establishment of the Bundesliga, HSV was the only professional club that has never been relegated.

This achievement was cultivated over the years and made part of the club identity of HSV. The club stuck with the nickname ‘Bundesliga-Dino’, the oldest of all. Thanks to HSV is There a Bundesliga, and whoever came to the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg would know that too.

On a large digital clock on the stands, the number of years, days, hours, minutes and seconds were indicated that HSV played in the Bundesliga. Under the nearest train station at the People’s Park Stadium, HSV fans still drink beer in Supporterscafé Unabstiegbara pun that means something like ‘unintrodible’.

When HSV had to play against relegation in 2011 after years of administrative chaos and mismanagement, the club collapsed in an existential crisis. Der HSVin the two Bundesliga? Unthinkable. In the final weeks of each subsequent competition year, it was always exciting whether the big Bundesliga clock would tap the following season.

Everything seemed lost in 2015, until HSV escaped in the injury time of the decisive relegation match. Specialist Rafael van der Vaart constructed for a free kick just outside the penalty area, but to his astonishment, his teammate Marcelo Díaz expressed the free kick in the intersection. The Bundesligaklok tapped through. The ‘Díaz-Tor’ is still seen as one of the most important goals in club history; Díaz ‘shoes are exhibited in the HSV museum next to the stadium.

Three years later things went wrong. Because the direct competition also won, a victory of HSV on the last day of play was not enough. The relegation match was stopped in the final phase when furious HSV supporters bombarded the field with fireworks and smoke bombs. Der Dino Was no longer there. The Bundesligaklok was stopped at 54 years, 261 days, 36 minutes and 2 seconds, to be completely removed a year later.

Killing competition

But the second Bundesliga, HSV now knows, you can’t just come out of that. Because several large German clubs relegated in recent years, the second level of Germany can now amply compete with the Bundesliga itself in terms of posters and visitor numbers.

The second level of Germany has eight stadiums with a capacity of 49,000 spectators or more – which are also sold out every week. With fallen bundesliga greats such as 1. FC Köln (Cologne), Hertha BSC (Berlin) and Schalke 04 (Gelsenkirchen), the mutual competition is even for a club like HSV. At the beginning of April, the total number of stadium visitors in the second Bundesliga surpassed in a playing weekend that of the Bundesliga (315,000 to 277,000) – something that only occurred twice before.

The fact that many clubs are so matched makes the second Bundesliga a pleasure to follow for neutral football supporters. Whereas in the ‘big’ Bundesliga the championship usually goes between Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund (and recently Bayer 04 Leverkusen), the course of the second Bundesliga is a lot more unpredictable, this season in particular. With three games to play, the difference between leader 1. FC Köln and number seven Kaiserslautern is only five points. Everyone still has a chance of promotion.

« Because the teams are so close together, there is even more pressure to win every game. Even if you are not with the best teams a few weeks before the end of the competition, you still have a chance to promote, » says Simon Philipps, vice -president of the HSV supporters club.

Fear of losing

Despite the relegation of HSV, the supporters remain faithful to their club. The number of members of the supporters club doubled in the last seven years to more than 110,000. « We are bigger than we ever were, » says Philipps with a smile. « Now that we are not playing Bundesliga, the club has more time and opportunities to focus on what HSV means for fans and the city. Supporters greatly appreciate that. »

Yet for many supporters, frustration is getting bigger by the year. They were so close to it so often: HSV finished four times and twice third, when it lost the decisive promotion competition.

Take the 2018-2019 season. Promotion seemed as good as inside – the mayor Peter Tschentscher, Hamburg, had already pricked a date for the festivities and the balcony scene for the players at the town hall. Due to a total mental slump, HSV lost three of the last five games and the fourth played a draw. Bernd Hoffmann, then chairman of HSV, spoke of « the most unnecessary non-promotion from football history. »

Also in 2020 and 2021 it went wrong on the last match days. In 2023, HSV seemed to promote for a moment. After a 1-0 win at SV Sandhausen, HSV only had to wait for the results of competitor Heidenheim. When the Sandhausen stadium speaker announced the end of the other game and congratulated HSV on the promotion, thousands of exuberant HSV fans rushed into the field to take the players on their shoulders. But the stadium speaker was wrong, and due to eleven minutes of injury and two late goals on the other field, HSV still missed out on promotion.

« It is the same every year, » sighs writer and philosopher Frank-Peter Hansen on the phone. Hansen lives in Berlin, but has been HSV supporter all his life. « Everyone in Hamburg knows: As soon as the end of the competition approaches, expectations and therefore also the fear that things will go wrong again. And if we play with fear of losing, we also lose. »

‘The pressure is getting too much’

In the loss who heralded the dip at the beginning of April, Hansen already saw it. « One of our attackers was so angry that he wanted to fly a fellow player. Then it was clear to me: cracks arise, the pressure becomes too much. »

Hansen wrote two books about HSV. One is it HSV encouraging bookwith 34 reasons why HSV will be on top again. It appeared shortly after the relegation in 2018. We are now seven years later and HSV is still not back in the Bundesliga. « I wrote it to be a bit happy about the fate of my club, but I don’t even believe what it says. » Hansen says. « We just have to laugh about it. Call it Galgenhumor. »

Whether HSV remains the boss will be the boss, will become apparent on Saturday. The supporters are convinced that the match against Darmstadt is of decisive importance. « I will really worry if we lose it, » says Yvette Schielcke at the open training.

A victory can turn the mind, but a new loss of points would be disastrous, Hansen also thinks. « Then the next match in the Volksparkstadion (against low -flyer SSV Ulm) will be a disaster. But if they win on Saturday, it might be fine. »

‘Sometimes a bit arrogant’

After the open training, trainer Merlin Polzin tries to keep the courage again on Thursday. « We have it in our own hands and just have to win two games, » he says during the press conference in the stadium. « Furthermore, we don’t let anyone talk about anything, certainly not by the people we have not even asked for criticism. »

Simon Philipps also has faith in it. Together with more than two thousand other supporters, he board the bus to Darmstadt on Saturday morning at 5 am. According to Philipps, the old feeling of the ‘Bundesliga-Dino’ still lives strongly among supporters. « Other clubs sometimes find us a bit arrogant in Hamburg, but HSV simply belongs in the Bundesliga. Everyone feels that. Certainly for older supporters it will soon be as if the order has been restored, when HSV plays in the Bundesliga again. »

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