Hamburg SV beat TSG 1899 Hoffenheim 2-0 on Sunday to climb out of the Bundesliga relegation zone and give coach Thorsten Fink his first win since taking over.
“We believed in it and we fought for it,” Fink said.
Jose Paulo Guerrero scored against the run of play in the 25th minute when the Peru striker was lucky to receive the rebound after his initial shot hit the right post.
Photo: EPA
Hamburg kept pressing in the second half and Marcell Jansen added the second goal in the 65th minute, when he ran at the visiting defense, before unleashing a low shot past Tom Starke at the near post.
Hamburg players danced before their fans at the final whistle after claiming their first victory at home in 10 attempts since a 6-2 win over Cologne in March.
“It’s a fantastic feeling, of course, but I must say it was just a question of time,” Hamburg sporting director Frank Arnesen said. “Today was just reward for all the guys’ work over the last four of five weeks. If we keep playing like we did today, we’ll have many more wins.”
Hamburg, who spent several weeks bottom of the Bundesliga, are unbeaten since Fink took over on Oct. 17.
Earlier, Martin Harnik scored twice to give VfB Stuttgart a hard-fought 2-1 win at home over Augsburg.
“We have to dig deeper in games,” Stuttgart sporting director Fredi Bobic said. “That was a pure victory of toil today.”
The home side failed to assert themselves on the game, leading to whistles from fans midway through the first half.
Harnik scored out of nothing in the 41st minute when Augsburg failed to clear the ball from Pavel Pogrebnyak and it fell kindly for the unmarked Austria striker to volley into the top-right corner.
Augsburg deservedly equalized after the break when Daniel Baier crossed for Tobias Werner to curl an unstoppable effort from outside the penalty area into the same corner in the 47th minute, but Harnik replied four minutes later, powering past Dominik Reinhardt on the left, before cutting inside and unleashing a fierce shot through a host of defenders.
“It’s so annoying. We were more active for long periods, we kept cranking up the game. We simply threw everything forward and we were missing the luck in the end,” Werner said.
Stuttgart — the 2007 champions — climbed to sixth, while Augsburg remained bottom of the table.
In Hamburg, Starke pulled off a great save from Guerrero in the second minute, while Sejad Salihovic had Hoffenheim’s best chance in the 18th minute, only for the Bosnian’s effort to drift to the right.
Guerrero should have scored his second in first-half stoppage-time when he fired over from close range, while Ryan Babel, Peniel Mlapa and Roberto Firmino all went close for Hoffenheim late on.
“We’re simply lacking the clarity in our play,” Hoffenheim coach Holger Stanislawski said after his first return to Hamburg since leaving city rivals St Pauli. “Of course, you also have to defend better in one situation or another.”
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