One step further?
One step further?
Next step towards a bright future? HSV Hamburg want to become number one in the country and reach the Champions League semi-finals again. This would be the minimum…
Hamburg added four top stars to the team: Croatian Blazenko Lackovic and Polish Marcin Lijewski arrive from SG Flensburg, German talent Arne Niemeyer from GWD Minden and line player Niclas Grundsten from Hammarby.
“All of them have great qualities and they will be able to strengthen our team. All of them fit into the philosophy of our coach Martin Schwalb well and our spectators will have a lot of fun with them,” sports director Christian Fitzek said.
Two players cannot help HSV at the start of the season. Oleg Velyky will need time to recover from his second skin cancer disease (Schwalb: “We will give him all the time he needs”) and German World champion Pascal Hens suffered a leg fracture at the Olympic Games in Beijing. Nobody can tell when Velyky will return, but it seems that Hens will need about five months to rest.
The hope of Hamburg is that they can set new standards for the club (third place in Bundesliga, semi-finalist at their first appearance in the Champions League).
“HSV handball club is now one of the outstanding symbols of Hamburg sports,” said president Andreas Rudolph, who’s also the main sponsor. “We are very proud of this and we feel that the expectations rise together with the number of spectators.”
HSV sold more season tickets than ever – nearly 5 000. The average number of spectators will reach over 9 000/game.
And they hope to celebrate as much as last season. “We have great plans and we want to fulfil our dreams. We have to give all if we want to reach our objectives,” said captain Guillaume Gille who has just become Olympics champion with France.
“We hope that you and your brother Bertrand will take the French euphoria to Hamburg and have a successful season,” Rudolph said.
Text: Björn Pazen
