Tim Walter was already in poor health before the game against Karlsruher SC. After the 3:4, the HSV coach was also very upset about his team’s defensive performance. The symptoms that afflict Hamburg residents are not new. But which therapy helps?
“We alone decide whether we get to where we want to go”: Tim Walter. IMAGO/Eibner
Walter has long had critics in his own club committees, even Horst Hrubesch is one of them and that is not without explosiveness. The youth boss and interim national coach of the DFB women is a close confidant of sports director Jonas Boldt, who decided to stick with the coach after the pre-Christmas analysis.
Hrubesch is not considered a politician in the football industry, but rather a pragmatist. As this, he lacks the conviction that Walter’s possession football with a certain risk factor is suitable for promotion, and on superficial inspection, Sunday’s defensive debacle was grist for the mill of the 72-year-old and all the other skeptics.
Walter’s point of view (“That wasn’t a relapse”) may sound idiosyncratic, but his argument cannot be completely dismissed. “Against Karlsruhe it wasn’t about defending as a team, but about defending individually.” In other words: The error was not in the system, but in individuals.
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This thesis is supported by the fact that HSV won 54 percent of the duels. “We had good duels, but in the crucial moments we didn’t win the duels. They were individual mistakes, it’s about individual players.” And yet the bottom line remains: the analysis that individual mistakes are decisive is not new. And eliminating or at least minimizing this is ultimately the responsibility of the trainer.
The coach tries to radiate strength
After being given the vote of confidence before Christmas, Walter is of course not automatically on the brink again just one defeat later. Because the bosses would completely counteract their own decision with a quick end. And yet four goals conceded at home against an opponent from the league’s midfield have enough potential to shake the confidence that HSV can finally become stable in the third year under the guidance of the 48-year-old from Baden.
The coach is visibly trying to radiate strength. He calls fourth place “an unimportant snapshot.” That may well be true given that it is still relatively early in the season, and yet the first slipping out of the promotion ranks is a clear indication that it will not be enough for the Bundesliga again.
Walter announces with full conviction: “We alone decide whether we get to where we want to go. Only we. Nobody else.” This statement is also justifiable. Given the economic efforts and the individual quality in the squad, it has also been true in recent years. However, HSV always failed. And almost always to yourself.