Liga-Total Cup Hamburger SV vs. Borussia Dortmund 0:1

Semi-final Liga-Total Cup at Hamburg. (One Halftime lasts about 30 minutes!)

BVB starting line up: Roman Weidenfeller – Chris Löwe, Mats Hummels, Neven Subotic, Łukasz Piszczek – Manni Bender, Ilkay Gundogan, Jakub Błaszczykowski, Ivan Perisic, Marco Reus – Julian Schieber.

Götze, Schmelzer and Santana had stayed at Dortmund because of some minor injuries. It was an interesting match during the first minutes with Marco Reus having our first chance (5’). We had some inattentive moments in the first 10 minutes, especially Ilkay Gündogan and Chris Löwe had some slight problems but then it got better. Kuba had nearly scored at the 12^th minute. We had been better in the first halftime as HSV who did not know how to help themselves differently than with some fouls. They made three coarse fouls and Jürgen Klopp voiced his complaints to the 4^th referee. In the half-time our manager Michael Zorc said that the team didn’t have the graveness as in a Bundesliga match but that’s ok.

We started into the second half-time without a substitution. A misunderstanding between Ilkay and Chris Löwe lead to a free-kick near the penalty area for HSV (37’) but they only hit the post. Kuba scored our  goal in the 42^nd minute assisted by Piszczek. It seems as if our Polish right-wing hit their form of the last season again.

Shortly after our match Werder Bremen played versus Bayern München. The winner will play against us tomorrow in the final. I think it will be Bayern München.

By the way we will play vs. Bayer München next week in the German Supercup.

Substitutes: Lewandowski (replaced Schieber 45’), Grosskreutz (replaced Perisic 45’), Leitner (replaced Gündogan 45’), Bittencourt (replaced Kuba 53’), Kehl (replaced Bender 58’)

Hummels played excellent. It is so important to have him until 2016. Reus played as well as Hummels. It’s fantastic to see him play in our jerseys and I truly belief that Reus will replace Shinji Kagawa at least 1:1 or better. Julian Schieber needs more time to fit in the team. Compared with Marco Reus he has more problems to be an important part in our formation. We all know that it was similar with Barrios and Lewandowski in their first season. Chris Löwe couldn’t replace Schmelzer 1:1 and the position of our right- and left-sided defender could be our only problem if Piszczek or Schmelzer get injured for a longer time period. I REALLY can hardly wait for the season opener at our Westfalenstadion!

by Marty on August 4th, 2012