Well, the North derby or the derby of the crisis teams. It the 3rd vs. the 2nd in the all-time Bundesliga table, but currently both teams are struggling. HSV fired their coach Fink during the week and Cardoso (he played for both clubs - traitor) coaches them. So HSV will be very motivated and Werder should be as well considering the performances in the last matches. Additional motivation should be a bet between HSV captain Van der Vaart and our captain Fritz: The team that loses tomorrow has to supply the other team at their christmas party with beer (rumors speak of 500 litres of beer). :-o In Werders line-up Martin Kobylanski, son of former Cottbus player Andrzej Kobylanski (88 BL matches), is in the match roster. He is used to play on the offensive wings and as central striker. I am surprised he got nominated and not Davie Selke or Melvyn Lorenzen, who have way better statistics at the reserve. But I wonder since some years about Werders decisions at the youth development. So I wish Martin all the best. Complete roster (kicker): Mielitz - Fritz, Prödl, Caldirola, Garcia - Makiadi, F. Kroos - Öz. Yildirim, Hunt, Ekici - Petersen Wolf (Tor), Gebre Selassie, Lukimya, Aycicek, Ignjovski, P. Stevanovic, Elia, Kobylanski (they are not up-to-date: Yildirim missed the final training due to injury problems, so most probably Elia will replace him in the starting line-up)
OMG, Petersen scored twice today. And we won 2-0 at Hamburg. Never had expected this after the last weeks, YEAHHHHHHHH.
Not a bad effort by the team overall. We actually looked like the more dangerous team! I guess Hamburg is even worse shape than us. Solid game from Elia. I'm glad Petersen got the two goals but he also missed a 1-on-1 after a great pass from Hunt. Makiadi's distribution continues to disappoint--several long passes intercepted. I really want to like the guy though. Our new left back looks pretty good. We still need to figure out our midfield triangle. It seems Makiadi is always part of the starting 11 so we have Ignjovski, Kroos, Junuzovic, Ekici, and now possibly Kobylanski competing for two spots. I'm not too sure what Dutt seems in Kroos so I'm glad to see Ignjovski get a start, and I think Ekici would be good as the forward point. I also think Hunt is better suited in the central midfield than on the wing, but we're so short of numbers on the wing that he pretty much has to play there. Hopefully Yildirim keeps improving and can get some playing time out there.
It'll be great to have him back, but I didn't think Kobianksy did too bad a job! Garcia looked great at left-back!