Juan Mata and Juan Bernat hand Valencia a 2-1 win over http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Hamburger-SV-c39485 in a pre-season friendly
Hamburger SV locked heads with the La Liga outfit http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Valencia-c40863 in a pre-season friendly on Tuesday, August 2. The Spanish side came out on top with a 2-1 win courtesy strikes from Juan Mata and Juan Bernat, while Hanno Behrens scored the only goal for the German
side.
Both teams went in with their best available squad but Hamburg lacked venom upfront, something they will direly need in the upcoming campaign.
Valencia made a shining start to the game and were on the front foot from the very first minute. They never allowed the Germans to go past them and had all the areas covered. The defenders were up to their level best as the home side attacked the opponent’s
net on more than one occasion in the opening ten minutes. Mata was always ominous with his outstanding skill and he completely bamboozled the Hamburg defenders.
It did not take long for Valencia to open the scoring and it was Mata whose sublime touch brought an early lead to the home side.
Hamburg, though, continued to fight and showed character despite being pushed back by La Liga outfit. The Germans got some sort of rhythm going but never managed to get past Los Che rearguard. It remained 1-0 at half time as both sides went into the tunnel.
Hamburg came out fighting in the second half and created a few openings in the middle. Striker http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Diego-Alves-c11071.
Most importantly, Valencia had their lead intact and soon got control of the ball. The hosts suddenly stepped one gear up and the http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Spain-c3011 U19 international, Juan Bernat, scored his team’s second goal of the evening on the 70th minute mark.
The game eventually went out of Hamburg’s grasp as the players looked tired and the game lacked that intensity which was shown earlier by both the sides. Behrens scored a late consolation goal for the visitors to add some respect to the final score line,
which read 2-1.
Manager http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Michael-c25261 Oenning was furious at his players and reckoned that his team could have performed much better. He urged his team to gear up ahead of the new season and told them not to repeat the same mistakes during the upcoming season.
Hamburger SV will travel away to Signal Iduna Park to take on Borussia Dortmund in the opening game of the 2011/12 campaign on Friday, August 5.
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