Coach Walter before the “final”?
A threatening “storm” is brewing at HSV
December 16, 2023, 6:35 a.m
Only one away win, just four points from the last four games: the situation around HSV coach Tim Walter is anything but calm. The Nuremberg game could point the way for his future – after all, the Hamburg team finally wants to return to the first Bundesliga.
Job anxiety? Nervous before the “final”? No way, Tim Walter didn’t show anything. “I know what a storm means in Hamburg,” said the coach of the struggling Hamburger SV: “It’s all about HSV. Our mission for the weekend is three points. If we fulfill that, we’ll have a nice Christmas.”
But the pressure is of course there, at 1. FC Nürnberg (1 p.m./Sky and in the ntv.de live ticker) Walter, who was unintentionally short-shaven (“it was a faux pas”), is probably doomed to win. After only four points from the last four league games, Walter has a strong wind blowing around his ears on the Waterkant. “Now it’s about Walter’s job,” wrote the “Hamburger Morgenpost” during the week: “Is he still the right person to achieve promotion?”
And because, according to “Kicker,” there is something “fundamentally wrong” at HSV, the game in Nuremberg could become “a game of fate” for Walter (“Hamburger Abendblatt”). “Of course it’s important for us to win a game. But we also know what we can do during the winter break to ultimately achieve our goals,” said Walter: “And that is clearly promotion.”
The big analysis after the Nuremberg game
But do the club bosses around Jonas Boldt still trust the 48-year-old to achieve this on his third attempt? After the Nuremberg game, the sports director and the coach will meet for a major analysis – this will also be about Walter’s future.
He has been training HSV since summer 2021 and has received more time than any of his predecessors in the 2nd league. And he achieved amazing things: he united the fans behind him and gave the team a spectacular style of play. But Walter has so far simply not been able to get the defense, which is always far too vulnerable, under control. Mistakes in his Sturm und Drang football are punished by conceding far too many goals. Sovereignty? None.
The results of the last few weeks are therefore sobering. HSV has only won four of the last eleven league games and has only managed one away win so far this season. So it will hardly be enough to achieve the desired return to the Bundesliga. In addition, there is the elimination in the DFB Cup round of 16 against Hertha BSC.
But the players stand behind their coach. “He has now proven in two and a half years that he can stand in the wind quite well,” said captain Sebastian Schonlau on Sky: “We are happy that he is up there. The team knows that a pretty big wave is coming “So that it blows him away – and I haven’t seen the wave yet.” But this could possibly be sparked by Nuremberg.