DIG DEEP AND GO AGAIN
Thursday, 06. April 2017, 16:00 Uhr
The Boys in Brown contest their third game in eight days at FC Nürnberg on Friday evening (kick-off: 18:30 CET). The task for the Boys in Brown against eighth-placed FCN will be to focus on their own strengths and dig deep to bring three points back to Hamburg after four games without a win.
No one in the home camp had reason to be satisfied after Tuesday's 0-0 draw against SV Sandhausen. Ewald Lienen's charges may have had a man advantage for most of the game, but a lack of punch in front of goal prevented them from taking all three points. "When you're a man to the good for 80 minutes, you have to do better and create more chances. That's the only way you're going to score," said Waldemar Sobota, for example, immediately afterwards. His teammate Lennart Thy was already turning his attention to the next game by then. "We have to brush ourselves down and the focus will be solely on Nürnberg from tomorrow, that's clear."
And that was precisely the motto when Lasse Sobiech and Co. made their way south on Thursday morning. Ewald Lienen put it in a nutshell at Wednesday's pre-match conference, saying: "It's still in our own hands and we have to focus 100 per cent on every single game." Nürnberg will be no pushovers, though, there is no question about that.
Michael Köllner's team may have left Hannover empty-handed after a 1-0 defeat on Tuesday, but they didn't deserve to lose. In the new formation introduced by the caretaker boss, Nürnberg matched the promotion candidates all the way with an excellent performance. Though frustrated not to get a point, there was consolation in defeat. "We know we played very well," said Köllner after the 90 minutes.
As far the Boys in Brown are concerned, it remains to be seen whether there will be two new faces in the squad compared with the last two games, as Lienen has not given up hope that Johannes Flum and Mats Møller Dæhli will be involved. "We'll have to wait and see how they come through training," he told the Hamburg media on Wednesday.
In the end, it doesn't matter who is in the travelling party. Players, coaches, backroom staff and fans alike all know that the only way to win is if everyone pulls together and gives their all. Four games without a victory are irrelevant then. "We've escaped a situation like this before and we'll do it again," said Christopher Buchtmann, summing things up nicely.
Photo: Witters
