Hamburger SV - FC Augsburg

It was very close last Season but this one they are doing much better and Coach Labbadia is very pleased with the performances so far. They only what should be improved is their home performance above all they had some problems to play against deep defending teams at home in the past. With their fast wings they need much more space to get them rolling and this is not always the case in home games above all if they have to come from behind or the match is very even. This is the last match before the break but most of the players have slight injuries or plays with injuries like Lasogga did in Wolfsburg last time. It is not the best and he risk a lot but he wants to help the team and bring this Year to a positive end. Despite the upcoming opponent they can get some problems again as Augsburg is a team who defends very well in recent games and showed an uptrend in their form what makes it to a very difficult for HSV. Nevertheless they have a good mood in their squad although the average outcome at home.
Some changes can be made from Labbadia as well as with Hunt is the central midfield player back from injury and he can replace Gregoritsch now, in defensive Djourou has not trained the whole week due to illness but he returns also in central back for Cleber.

To begin of the Season we have mentioned already that this can be a very difficult one for Augsburg as almost all small clubs who managed an international spot had a lot of problems in the upcoming Season. No they were all involved in relegation battle and had a negative finish with relegation. There were teams like Aachen, Mainz, Frankfurt and Freiburg, all can tell their own story. The next team is Augsburg in this category but after having a lot of problems in the first 12 Rounds with only 6 Points they started to turn things around and managed an unbeaten run from 4 games now what allowed them to collect 10 Points out of these matches and put them out of red zone. With 16 Points they can look forward a bit more positive and Coach Weinzierl is very pleased with his team for past matches. Above all the key match in European League against Partizan Belgrad which they had to win with the exactly result 3-1 to advance to next stage gave them an additional boost now.

Of course, one of the key facts is their new strength in defense and also the excellent work against the ball. They are absolutely aggressive and really nasty what makes it very difficult to play against them. Also they conceded only 1 in the last matches and keeper Hitz was 361 minutes without conceding a goal until Kolasinac from Schalke put the ball behind him on Sunday. With all this positive results and issues they had recently they are a much better team now, they have much more self confidence, a better mood and do not so many mistakes as to begin. They have much more trust in their actions and believe on their strength and what this produce is seen on their results lately.

We expect a close match between these two sides what was the case in all their matches against each other. It can be a hard fight till the end to end up this year and go on holidays. Despite the lose in Cup Augsburg is in good shape and should make some trouble for HSV.