Tim Walter is history, a new coach has to lead HSV to promotion. It’s actually grotesque that the club is still a second division team.
Early on Monday morning, the pay-TV channel Sky first reported on the separation, and shortly after nine o’clock HSV made it official: Tim Walter is no longer the coach of the Hamburg sports club.
“The next one, please,” is the motto on the Elbe, although one has to at least attest to the fact that the club has not attracted attention with great activism in the coaching position in recent years.
Tim Walter was responsible for the Hamburg sidelines for 2.5 years. Longer than any other coach before him in the second division. 956 days to be exact. Only Frank Pagelsdorf had been in office for the Rothosen longer at the turn of the millennium (1,539 days).
It is a statistic that reveals that the former Bundesliga dinosaur was striving for continuity. Neither Christian Titz nor Hannes Wolf, Dieter Hecking or Daniel Thioune were allowed to coach at HSV for longer than a year. And they all finished fourth in the table – or were fired shortly before the end of the season.
Rethinking at Boldt
Compared to his predecessors, Tim Walter can actually look back on a successful time. He reached third place twice and failed twice in relegation (in 2022 at Hertha, in 2023 at VfB Stuttgart).
And this season HSV, currently third in the table, is fully involved in the promotion race. However, the most recent development caused board member Jonas Boldt, who had stuck with Walter until the end, to rethink. In addition, the native of Bruchsal (Baden-Württemberg) always polarized with his manner, be it with his brash sayings (“I don’t watch the 2nd league”) or his sometimes short-tempered coaching on the sidelines.
If you look at the form table, Walter’s dismissal is a logical step. In the last seven league games, HSV suffered three defeats with three wins and a draw once – resulting in 10th place in the league average and therefore absolutely mediocre. The blatant away weakness in the first half of the season could be remedied with three recent wins (in Nuremberg, at Schalke, in Berlin). Instead, the last three home games (Paderborn, Karlsruhe, Hanover) were all lost – and that after a previously flawless record of seven wins in seven home games.
HSV mutated into a miracle bag. The defense conceded a whopping 12 goals in four games of the second half of the season, a record unworthy of a potential promoted team. The search for the balance between offense and defense remains fruitless – at least for Tim Walter. Like all his predecessors, he ultimately failed. The fact that HSV has not managed to bring stability to its game despite a significantly improved squad including new additions and remaining cornerstones from last season is a disadvantage that Walter has to accept.
HSV with the most expensive squad in the league
It also seems grotesque how HSV, as the supposed top favorite, gambles away promotion year after year. Cologne, Paderborn, Union Berlin, Bielefeld, Stuttgart, Heidenheim, Bochum, Fürth, Kiel, Schalke, Bremen and Darmstadt were the names of the clubs that finished ahead of Hamburg since the 2018/2019 season. With a few exceptions, the Nordklub has been the team with the highest market value in the 2nd Bundesliga in recent years.
Even before the start of the current season, Hamburg had the most expensive squad in the league with a value of around 46 million euros – ahead of the relegated teams from Berlin and Gelsenkirchen. And yet this season, two other teams, currently St. Pauli and Holstein Kiel, seem to be ahead.