Europa League Preview: Hamburg v Fulham
Every morning Fulham fans wake up and slap themselves repeatedly in the face. They do that to make sure this season hasn’t been a dream.
They have been strong in the league, had a decent run in the cup and now Roy Hodgson and his merry men march onwards to Germany. Their hopes of European success are still very much alive as they face Hamburg at the HSH Nordbank Arena in the first leg of the Europa League semi-final.
Getting to the semis was a breeze for The Cottagers, getting to Hamburg was the tricky part. The much-mentioned volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, ruled out flights and was the cause of the subsequent 17-hour coach journey, which took in some road-side training. Never has there been a more bizarre sight for a gridlocked German motorist than Bobby Zamora and Paul Konchesky doing keepy-ups on the hard shoulder of the autobahn.
Now Fulham’s road-trip through northern Europe is complete, it’s down to business and arguably the biggest game in Fulham’s recent history. It’s been a truly remarkable campaign for the west-London outfit and a cup final would be the icing on the cake for a team who three years ago looked destined for the drop.
They will be looking towards the in-form Zamora to guide them through to an unprecedented final. Zamora has grabbed six goals so far in Europe and has been in a rich vein of form of late, becoming something of a talisman for The Cottagers and knocking on the England door.
Hamburg have their own goal threat in the form of Ruud van Nistelrooy. The scourge of English teams for so many years, when he played for Manchester United, he will relish the opportunity to roll back the years and plunder a few goals against Fulham. Of course everybody in England knows about van Nistelrooy's quality, a predator in the box you can’t allow him space to shoot, but he won’t do much away from goal. His strike partner may well be Paolo Guerrero, who is serving a league suspension for hitting a fan. Sounds like a nice chap.
They will also be joined in the starting line up by film-fanatic goalkeeper Frank Rost. Bizarrely Rost fell out with manager Bruno Labbadia after he and several of his teammates broke the rules and went to the cinema the night before a Bundesliga match.
They may well have gone to see Clash of the Titans and perhaps tonight will conjure up an epic battle of similar proportions.
Fulham will hope to welcome back Clint Dempsey. The American midfielder has a habit of popping up with vital goals and will be looking to do so once more. Damian Duff will want to be at his influential best as well; the Irishman has been reborn this season and has proved a very good signing and fans will also be hoping that Zoltan Gera will prove an enigma for the Hamburg defence. Meanwhile John Pantsil, Stefano Okaka and Nicky Shorey are all ineligible while Andy Johnson is a long-term injury casualty.
For Hamburg losing over the two legs would be a particularly bitter pill to swallow because the final is on their home ground. It would be like someone having a party in your house and not inviting you. They have a lot of work to do if they want to dispatch an effervescent Fulham side. Their legs must now be weary having played 56 games for the season with a relatively small squad; it makes their appearance in the semis even more remarkable, but they won’t let that deter them from reaching their first major European final.
After enduring a nightmare coach journey over 15,000-miles, in a mere luxury bus, crammed with DVDs, laptop’s, iPod’s, food and anything else they could possibly want, Fulham now have to somehow fined the strength to dig deep and produce a quality performance.
Let’s just hope those poor footballers never have to endure such an ordeal ever again.
Prediction: Hamburg 0 Fulham 0
It’s going to be a tight game between two teams of similar quality; both will be apprehensive and hoping to maintain a clean-sheet. For Hamburg denying Fulham an away goal will be a solid performance, while the west-London outfit will be more than happy to take the German side back to Craven Cottage on equal footing.
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