On the brink

Football is a fickle game. It doesn't care for history, it doesn't hand out rewards for fashion or flair, and it won't roll over and let you get your way - however many star players you might hire for your team. Bigger clubs than the Hamburger Sport-Verein (HSV) have fallen victim to the belief that these things combined can make a team a contender. Just ask Real Madrid.

Hamburg certainly have a rich history. Hamburg have been Bundesliga champions six times and runners-up eight times, enjoying their most successful period in the league in the mid-1980s. They also celebrated a European Cup win back in those halcyon days, upgrading from a team of Cup Winners' Cup winners in the late 1970s.

HSV also have a reputation for playing with flair, a trait they share with their bitter northern German rivals Werder Bremen. Hamburg traditionally play a game based on attack and love to field creative players in their teams. They want to entertain, and their fans have come to demand it from them. However, as with many teams - like Werder - who place offensive prowess and poetry in motion above the unfashionable graft of defending, Hamburg often concede sacrificial goals in their pursuit of their own.

All this means the club attracts a certain type of player. Hamburg eyebrows have barely recovered from the heights they were raised to when Rafael van der Vaart joined the club from Ajax Amsterdam in 2005. Back then, Van der Vaart seemed destined for Italy or Spain after setting the Dutch league alight with his canny playmaking and silky skills. Yet he chose Hamburg, where he could run the show, rather than a bigger club where he might be overshadowed. (With some justification - witness his present status as a role player at Real Madrid.)

His countrymen Eljero Elia and Ruud van Nistelrooy thought the same, and the Peruvian Paolo Guerrero was so convinced he could grab a truckload of goals up north that he swapped Bayern Munich for Hamburg in 2006.

Reputation means nothing as Hamburg struggle to save season

With those players, and others like Mladen Petric and Piotr Trochowski, Hamburg boast quality in attack that most other sides in the Bundesliga can only envy. But it would seem that Hamburg has fallen into the aforementioned vanity trap.

The fashionable, star-studded club of legend is not where its own self-image dictates it should be - and that bit of truth hurts. Instead of fighting for the Bundesliga championship, Hamburg is struggling to even keep hold of a Europa League spot for next year.

Hamburg are currently winless in their last four games in the Bundesliga, and Guerrero's now infamous throwing of a water bottle into the face of a fan after a dull 0-0 draw against Hanover on Sunday didn't exactly improve relations between the team and the club's fans. Moreover, the German Football Association (DFB) effectively ended Guerrero's league season this week, banning him from the final five matches.

The meltdown represents the unravelling of a season which promised so much. Hamburg started this campaign by sticking four past Borussia Dortmund and champions Wolfsburg consecutively and netting three times against Cologne, Stuttgart and Hertha Berlin in the space of a month with a 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in between.

HSV's reputation for free-flowing attacking soccer seemed to be in good hands as Bruno Labbadia looked to end Hamburg's 27-year wait for its next Bundesliga title. In fact, Hamburg were top through most of October.

Things began to come apart in Week 10 when Hamburg lost to Borussia Moenchengladbach and although the ship was steadied a month later with victories over Nuremberg, Bremen and Freiburg, defeat to lowly Bochum and a run of five draws saw HSV drop to fifth.

HSV feels the pressure as form deserts them and fans revolt

Now, with Hamburg struggling in sixth, coach Labbadia is coming under fire after a run of just one league win in seven games. That's because, for all the side's success in the Europa League, Hamburg are in imminent danger of falling out of the top six, and thus ending up without a place in Europe - the bare minimum for a club of Hamburg's standing in the German game.

An alternate route into Europe would be to win this year's Europa League title - a task made somewhat easier by the fact that the final, should they reach it, will be played in Hamburg's home ground. But counting on beating Fulham over two legs, and then getting past the winner of the other semi-final (Atletic Madrid vs. Liverpool) is a fool's game.

Hamburg's dominant performance in Liege on Thursday night will have instilled the side with confidence, and seemed to please the travelling fans, but clearing the strained atmosphere between the team and supporters will take more than an away win in Belgium.

Guerrero's eruption - allegedly a reaction to some vile abuse from the stands - made evident the growing rift between the players and the fans. While the Peruvian was the first to react so violently, other players like Dennis Aogo complained that the fans had turned against the team early in the match, instead of supporting it. And tellingly, the immediate reaction from teammates to Guererro's dead-eyed throw was not exactly condemnatory - keeper Frank Rost even made a joke about it - and the squad was quick to close ranks and embrace the striker when he scored a late goal in Liege.

It could be that a win or two will heal the fissure, but HSV should take note that disgruntled fans are not to be ignored. Hundreds of VfB Stuttgart supporters tried to storm the dressing room after a loss last year, setting off the final countdown to the sacking of coach Markus Babbel, and around 50 Hertha Berlin fans stormed the pitch in March after a home defeat against Nuremberg.

Ralf Bednarek, head of the influential Hamburg fan group Supporters, told reporters that Guerrero's action had to do with the team and not the fan dissent. "The team is trying to distract from its own problems. Guerrero lost it because the team is under pressure," Bednarek said.

Pressure - what pressure? Hamburg has five league games - and two cup ties - to save their season.

Author: Nick Amies
Editor: Matt Hermann