The passion from both sets of fans remains undimmed, but the question is whether the teams will get away with underachieving again this season
Even by the standards of local tussles and their particular intensity, it wasn’t much of a spectacle. Pundit Lothar Matthäus told the Sky audience that Saturday’s 107th top-flight Nordderby between Hamburg and Werder Bremen “didn’t deserve a sold-out stadium” – nearly 55,000 were there – but what did anybody expect? These two grand old clubs have been on the train leaving Worried, headed for Desperate, for a while and after this fractious encounter, neither look like taking a diversion soon.
For HSV, who had a muted celebration of the club’s 130th birthday on Friday, it was tougher to distil a prevailing emotion after this goalless draw, as their coach Markus Gisdol acknowledged. “I’m torn on what to think,” he said, praising the performance of his side who nevertheless completed a goalless September, and have gone 450 minutes without scoring.
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