Hooray, football is finally back in Hamburg! Alright, not the proper league stuff yet, but even at the lower league level of my second club Concordia the winter break is short and needs must. First training session of 2018 took place on Friday and yesterday there was a midseason friendly indoor tournament to help the lads burn away any excess calories of their Christmas and New Year dinners. This tournament is a quite traditional event by now, Cordi organise the whole lot and invite nine other teams from East Hamburg to compete for very little money but a lot of pride at stake. The nice thing is that it’s only local derbies, in fact you can’t get much more local than this, the longest trip any team had to make for this one was an 8 mile journey.
I have to admit that indoors football is not really my cup of tea, you tend to see a lot of goals, granted, but playing indoors also involves the risk of injuries waiting to happen and all those shots bouncing off the boards in a confined space make it a very acquired taste. I prefer the outdoor version.
But it was a welcome opportunity to watch some live footie again, plenty of games in quick succession, each lasting a mere ten minutes, I could also wish the other known faces from the local fan scene a Happy New Year, have some banter and also not worry too much about the results on the pitch, sorry, the basketball court.
To cut a long story short, Cordi were playing some awful football (still a bit rusty I reckon) but like an experienced horse at the end of the day they only jumped as high as they needed to, made it to the final regardless and won the trophy after a thrilling penalty shootout (What did you expect ? This is Germany!).
I made it back home, just as our Cup tie at Shrewsbury had finished which was convenient as I could put on a Hammers shirt and start watching the recording immediately…
Well, to be fair it wasn’t exactly a Cup Classic, was it ? Once again we failed to put our stamp on the game, create a number of goalscoring opportunities or even pass the ball to a teammate with any conviction. And while Shrewsbury are a very talented and organised outfit they are still a League One club. So seeing us stumble and stutter our way to a replay wasn’t beautiful. It would have been even more dreadful if it hadn’t been for the efforts of our East London kindergarten out there, with some very decent shifts put in by Declan Rice, Reece Burke, Toni Martinez and last but not least, Mr.Josh Cullen.
Not only did he make some very tidy interceptions, playing some nice passes into the bargain, he also literally put his body on the line by way of taking a kick in the North and South. I could sympathise a lot with Cullen in that fateful moment as I lost some teeth in similar fashion when I was around the same age. To then finish the game and still throw yourself into blocks and challenges takes a lot of guts and I can only applaud young Cullen for his bravery and exemplary display of willingness to take one for the team and go right through the pain barrier.
I won’t blame our youngsters for failing to take the game by the scruff of the neck and win it, for that to happen our more experienced players would have been required to play a bit more like the footballers of Premier League standard they presumably are. In fact, I’d say our youngsters were by far the best players on the pitch wearing claret and blue, grazing The New Meadow.
It’s too small a sample size yet to decide if Cullen and Burke should remain on the fringes of our first team now or if we should send them back to Bolton on loan for the rest of the season (their only options now after playing in the Cup game against Shrewsbury).
I will always advocate the idea of giving our youngsters a shot at first team football. I think guys like Rice, Oxford, Burke, Cullen, Quina and Martinez all have a decent chance to make the step up, some sooner (like Rice and Oxford), others maybe later (the rest).
In any case I think it’s well worth it to keep some patience with them as they are unlikely to command high transfer fees anyway should we decide to sell them.
And knowing our rather thrifty approach in the transfer market I’d rather see us showing some trust in our prospects instead of getting out the scattergun, signing some South American punts who might be able to adjust to Premier League football given some time or crash and burn quickly.
Our business in the transfer window will be highly interesting because it might give us some answers (again) in terms of the actual level of our board’s ambition.
Will we be happy enough to simply replace the players we ship out ?
Or will we push the boat out just a little bit further and try to nail down a quality signing or two if possible ?
Will the owners really be happy to just stay up ? Or will we give it a genuine shot to finish at least in a more respectable midtable position ? I reckon we should go for the latter as it can only help our transfer business in the summer if we finish as high as possible.
Players surely prefer to join a club that finished 10th instead of one that only just escaped relegation on the last day of the season. I’d love to see one or two quality signings arriving in the next few weeks, but I won’t be holding my breath and I will definitely continue going to bed during the transfer window!
Another quick final word on Concordia: The transfer window is open for the lower leagues in Germany as well and it’s mindblowing with how much of a turnover my local side will have to cope, full on revolving door style. Six players have already left during the break, with three new faces coming in and more ins and outs to follow. Cordi have also just now filled an urgent vacancy by finally hiring a new vice president/director of football. And after playing a hugely underwhelming first half of the season they have also had to quickly adjust their short term goals and ambitions. Promotion to the next level is already out of the question for this season at least, so it looks like it’ll have to be baby steps for the time being, slow and steady progress from now on. So unfortunately it’s not all roses, wine and sunshine at Concordia either my dear fellow Hammers…
One thing’s for sure. January won’t be boring for West Ham either, with plenty of twists and turns lurking with intent, on and off the pitch. Let’s hope the rollercoaster will be kind and we don’t get stuck, hanging upside down in a looping…COYI!!!