Season

Moving on from Braunschweig defeat with purpose

After the first home defeat of the season, the Rothosen want to deliver a response this coming Saturday away at Schalke. Merlin Polzin talked about the mantra for the days ahead as a new week of training kicked off.

Friday night’s battle with Eintracht Braunschweig was a “day to forget” for HSV according to Polzin following their first loss on home soil in 2024/25. The team were critical of their own performance speaking in the Volksparkstadion’s Mixed Zone after full time, albeit without questioning their belief in their strengths. “We deserved to lose. It hurts even more at home, but we will analyse this defeat and move past it. I’m not worried about this unsettling us,” said striker Davie Selke.

After breaking down the reasons behind the loss on Saturday and Monday morning, the focus has now fully shifted to next weekend’s trip to FC Schalke 04. After all, Polzin and his side have managed to keep their cool throughout the campaign during both highs and lows. Setbacks in Ulm, Regensburg or Paderborn were always followed by the right reaction, all helping Hamburg remain in the driver’s seat in the race for promotion. Now it’s about delivering the next response, and that will require an intense week of training, beginning this afternoon. Following the session, the head coach spoke to the media about…

…squad news: No one has come away from the Braunschweig game with any injury problems. Jonas Meffert and Dennis Hadzikadunic should be match fit again for the next game. Ludovit Reis will also be an option again. With Meffo, there still needs to be a final decision in consultation with the medical staff about whether he feels more comfortable playing with or without the mask. For Dennis, another week of training will give him the push he needs to get back to 100 percent compared to last week.

…lessons from the Braunschweig game: It’s an easy excuse to say that we were missing four potential regular starters. We have good squad depth at the end of the day. But the truth is, a settled team can usually handle one change – it’s a different story when several pieces are missing and the team’s still trying to gel. That might have played a role on Friday night. But in the end, we just didn’t play well. Braunschweig deserved to get the win. We’ve analysed the game now and we’ve moved on. Our full focus is on Schalke.

…the overall situation: It’d be completely the wrong approach to suddenly start thinking that we have something to lose, and that’s what I told the team today. It’s all about improving yourself bit by bit in training. We’re going on the offensive – we’ve got nothing to lose, rather we want to play our own game and deliver not just results but performances too. We weren’t happy with what we produced on Friday, and it doesn’t matter whether that’s on matchday 12 or matchday 29. We want to play our brand of football. The focus this week is about getting back to where we were.