Season
07.02.23
Diligently defended for the seventh Clean Sheet
In the recent 2-0 win in Rostock, HSV kept a clean sheet for the first time since Matchday 9. The best defence of the pre-season underpinned its own claims.
"You can't prevent everything," Tim Walter had stated before the away game at F.C. Hansa Rostock (2:0), and he was proved right. The Rostock team did manage to score, but HSV keeper Daniel Heuer Fernandes and his team-mates prevented the most important thing - conceding a goal. For the first time since the 9th matchday of the 2. Bundesliga , when HSV won 2:0 at home against Fortuna Düsseldorf in mid-September, the score remained zero. This was a missed, but by no means unusual, feeling for the Rothosen defence, as they had finished six of their first nine games this season without conceding a goal. With their seventh game without conceding a goal in the current 2022/23 2. Bundesliga season, Hamburg rank third in the statistics behind Paderborn and Darmstadt (eight each). In the entire pre-season, the Red Shorts collected nine white waistcoats and ended up with the best defence in the 2. Liga with 35 goals conceded (currently 21, 2nd place).
Captain Schonlau as an anchor
"When you come here to Rostock, you can expect pure second division football. We earned our luck in defence because we threw ourselves into every ball. We wanted to consciously look for the duels and win them. That was the key today," said HSV captain Sebastian Schonlau after the hard-fought match. The head of defence of the Rothosen is setting the best example this season, winning 61.4 per cent of his duels and is thus the best tackler in the team. With Mario Vuskovic (54.7 per cent), Miro Muheim (54), Jonas Meffert (52.7) and Moritz Heyer (49.8), four other players from the defensive unit are in the internal top ten. Home-grown Jonas David, currently replacing Vuskovic alongside Schonlau, has fitted in seamlessly in the two second-round matches so far with an average of 56 per cent tackling rate. Much to the delight of HSV coach Tim Walter, who said with satisfaction after the game in Rostock: "We played good football and defended cleanly. Therefore, I am very satisfied with my team. I'm especially pleased that we finally played to nil again."