POST MATCH BLOG: Revenge is a dish of hamburgers best served cold

Drums in the deep ……drums pounding, from one hour before the game, the rhythm was set, the pulses were racing, “The Battle of the Burgs” was about to begin. This North German derby had everything you could wish for, planning, power, passion, pride, pivotal moments and a German winner. Who could wish for more in a “Match of the Week?

Both coaches made their plans. Vranjes planned for no left backs at all, Kaufman, Đorđić and Atlason all injured. Schwalb planned without the services of Lacković.The “Curse of the Left Backs” had touched the game and although, needs must as needs do, planning was called for and the coach with the best plan would win the game.

This game ebbed and flowed, then see-sawed. One team was up and one team was down the whole way. Last week we saw the tortoise beat the hare. This week we saw a different style from Flensburg.

Gone were the speed merchants of earlier rounds, as if the coach realized he hadn’t the manpower for a sustained all-out attack. In fact, at times, it was Hamburg who played the faster handball. It was a complete role reversal.

The quiet wolf had planned to perfection. He rotated his team from a single line player to a double line player always giving rests to his players (aside from the ever present wing duo of Hansen and Eggert) never allowing a player to struggle.

Except in the case of the maestro Mogensen, whom, when he needed the rest with 15 minutes to go and having given away 3 balls, Vranjes replaced him.

He trusted his players to do a job for him. On the other hand, Schwalb, put his faith in Duvnjak, and Domagoj, who had cut through the Flensburg team at will in the first half, was a pale shadow of himself in the second half when it was clear he needed a break.

Drums in the deep … For those of you familiar with Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” it is what Gandalf hears before his doom on the bridge at Khazad-dum.

Drums in Flensburg! Feet stomping, hands clapping. Hamburg has just taken the lead from their opponents having been 4 goals down. Vranjes sees his teams doom and thinks, “Thus far and no further”. He calls a time out. A pivotal moment. And suddenly he does something very “unVranjes”-like.

He calls the entire team to the office and dresses them down. He berates his team in front of the television cameras. He asks them, in a more “artistic” way, if there are any men among them.

The team is silent, but actions speak louder than words.

Stung by his criticism or moved by his words, they are a team reborn. They fight for every possession; every ball and Glandorf who has been good in the game is reborn. He scores again and again and again. The team plays as a team possessed and Hamburg has no reply.

The drums beat on, in a more frenzied cadence. The win wasn’t enough to overtake Hamburg in the group table, but it was a measure of revenge for last week’s game and as the fans chewed their pretzels, on the court, Flensburgers ate Hamburgers.