15 HSV titles & 268 Seeler goals: Oberliga Nord from 1947 to 1963 completely in the TM database

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A transfer the likes of which the Bundesliga had never seen before: With the signing of Kevin Keegan, HSV caused a sensation in the summer of 1977. The Hamburg team, who were striving for the top and who had just won the European Cup Winners’ Cup, paid a transfer fee of 2.3 million D-Marks (the equivalent of around 1.17) for the newly crowned winner of the European Cup, which at the time dwarfed anything in Germany million euros) to Liverpool FC. But the captain of the English national team, like the entire team, was disappointed in the first season and was also plagued by homesickness. That was to change in the second season, when “Mighty Mouse” scored 17 goals for HSV to their first championship title since the Bundesliga was founded. Keegan, who was twice named the best footballer in Europe, was the idol of all fans at the latest – and remains so to this day. He left HSV in 1980 after losing the final in the national championship cup and missing the championship for Southampton.

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It wasn’t until 20 years later that Keegan’s club transfer record would be broken – and then twice within just a few months. First of all, it was Rodolfo Cardoso who cost more when he signed on in May 1997. 1.5 million euros were transferred to the competition from Bremen after the Argentine playmaker had previously completed a season on loan at the Volksparkstadion. The injury-prone Argentine was supposed to be released the following winter, but no club was found that wanted to pay the transfer fee requested by HSV. So he initially went home twice on loan, before five more seasons in the jersey with the diamond followed from 1999 onwards. Cardoso has been working as a coach at the club – with interruptions – since 2005.

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On September 24th, after a long hiccup, the Argentine was finally replaced by Anthony Yeboah. After 34 months, the two-time top scorer from his time at Eintracht Frankfurt returned to the Bundesliga for a fee of 2.15 million euros. The reason for the delayed signing of the Ghanaian from Leeds United, whose true age had always been speculated, was his tax debts to the Hanau tax office, which he had to pay before his return.

Hamburg’s record investment initially didn’t pay off in terms of sport; in his first year on the Elbe, the attacker was disappointing most of the time. That changed in the 1998/99 season, when he scored 14 goals in the Bundesliga. The top earner also impressed the following season before things went downhill again. Nevertheless, Yeboah stayed until the end of 2001 and in the meantime caused a stir by arbitrarily extending his expiring contract by one year using an option after the club had not previously done so. At the turn of the year 2001/02, an agreement was finally reached to terminate the contract early.

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Even before that, in the summer of 2000, HSV broke its spending record twice again. After reaching the Champions League, Marcel Ketelaer, among others, was signed, who had previously shone in the 2nd Bundesliga with Borussia Mönchengladbach and was considered one of the greatest talents in German football at the time. However, the winger was unable to live up to the high expectations. Ketelaer only stayed in Hamburg for two seasons, and he was unable to secure a regular place during this time. Initially on loan, the winger eventually returned to his training club Gladbach, followed by a permanent transfer in 2003. Of the transfer fee of 2.8 million euros that was once paid, only 650,000 euros were returned to HSV.

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In contrast to Ketelaer, Milan Fukal’s move was a bad one from the start. The Czech hesitated for a long time before agreeing to a transfer to Germany and initially refused on the grounds that he did not want to expose his pregnant wife to a move. At the end of August, the national player finally agreed, HSV transferred 2.9 million euros to the financially troubled Sparta Prague and had supposedly found the reinforcement they were looking for for the defense. But Fukal was never really happy in Hamburg, bore the mark of a bad purchase for a long time and was only a regular player in the 2002/03 season, in which the club finished fourth. In the summer of 2004, like his predecessor, he moved on to Mönchengladbach.

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Great expectations that were not fulfilled – this also applies to the next record transfer in HSV history. Jörg Albertz showed strong performances in the Hanseatic city between 1993 and 1996, which he was no longer able to build on after five years at Glasgow Rangers. In his first season after his return, the 5 million purchase was a regular player when he was fit, before he was retired by then coach Kurt Jara in the second season after four appearances. “I left the first time I was in Hamburg, this time I was expelled,” he said when he said goodbye in March 2003 and became the first German professional to move to China, to Shanghai Shenhua. He is said to have received a severance payment of 1.3 million euros for the termination of the contract.

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Bernardo Romeo, Albertz’s successor in terms of record transfer fees, came to Hamburg in January 2002. The striker from Argentina showed his qualities in front of the opposing goal from the start, scored a total of 45 goals in 88 games during his time at HSV and is one of the most effective goalscorers in the club’s history with a rate of 0.51. However, the goalgetter also often dived, hardly played any part in the game and had a poor tackle rate. In the first half of the 2004/05 season he finally lost his regular place, new coach Thomas Doll also stated that Romeo would not fit into his system. So they initially went on loan to Mallorca in the winter, and the final separation followed in the summer of 2005. Osasuna paid a fee of €1 million for the services of the discarded striker.

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When Vincent Kompany was brought in for a record sum of 10.5 million euros in the summer of 2006, the then Champions League participant seemed to have landed a real transfer coup. At just 20 years old, the defender had already played more than 100 professional games for RSC Anderlecht and was considered a highly sought-after top talent internationally. After bad luck with injuries in his first season, coach Huub Stevens increasingly used him in defensive midfield in the second season, which the Belgian didn’t really like. There were major differences and public accusations the following summer because of his participation in the Olympic Games. Kompany was only allowed to play at the start of the tournament in Beijing and had to return to the club early against his will. His departure shortly before the transfer deadline came as a surprise to many. The newly rich Manchester City took action, where Kompany, who, according to then-president Bernd Hoffmann, had not met expectations in Hamburg, became a club legend in the following years.

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The majority of HSV fans were extremely happy when their club brought the “prodigal son” Rafael van der Vaart back to the Elbe on Deadline Day in the summer of 2012 with the support of investor Klaus-Michael Kühne. The Dutch playmaker had regularly delighted fans between 2005 and 2008 and was supposed to get the club back on the road to success after a disappointing season. An undertaking that the 13 million purchaser and his teammates only managed in the first year, before two years of trembling in the relegation games against relegation followed. The star player’s advancing age became increasingly noticeable, his expiring contract was not extended in the summer of 2015 and van der Vaart went to Real Betis Sevilla on a free transfer. He later described his return to HSV as “not the smartest step”.

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For the last time, HSV broke its own transfer record in the summer of 2016 to get Filip Kostic away from VfB Stuttgart, who had just been relegated to the 2nd Bundesliga. In the poker for the services of the Serbian winger, they beat VfL Wolfsburg, among others, but in the end had to transfer 14 million euros to the Swabians. Kostic did not fully live up to the high fee; in 65 competitive games he only managed 15 direct goals. After Hamburg’s historic first relegation in 2018, he quickly made it clear that he wanted to leave the club and even refused to be called up to the squad at the start of the season. The search for a buyer who would recoup a similarly high transfer fee was tough – and ultimately ended with a big loss from HSV’s perspective. Initially loaned to Frankfurt for 600,000 euros, Kostic flourished there, so that the previously agreed purchase option for 6 million euros turned out to be a bargain for the Hessians.