3 up, 3 down and 100% at Home
The Oktoberfest in underway in Germany and the location of this in Hannover is in the shadow of the HDI arena. The close proximity of the Oktoberfest to the stadium combined with the so called “English week” of games (which is what Germans call games that are played during the week instead of at the weekend) make for an interesting pre-match. People head from work, meet up for a few social drinks at the Oktoberfest and head to the stadium already in the mood for singing. In the stadium itself, they also had a “happy hour” before the game where all beer was 50% off. Something was telling me that could be a very enjoyable game under the floodlights.
My seat in the stadium is directly behind the goal where the away team warms up, it is always interesting to see them going through the shooting practice. A one-two pass on the edge of the box and shoot for goal. Watching them shoot, I was amazed at their accuracy and proficiency at finding the top corner of the goal nearly every time. I was wondering how this team had only scored 2 goals in the first 4 games! Their finishing was sublime. I was hoping that they would not continue this level of finishing into the actual game. Only time would tell.
Kick off, and the with the pitch being illuminated by the hundreds of floodlights on all side the singing started in ernest from both sides. This Cologne team may have only scored 2 goals in the first 4 games but in those 4 games they have kept 4 clean sheets, a great credit to their defensive work….but it took only 6 minutes for them to know they would not be keeping a 5 clean sheet. A turn and shot from Jimmy Briand that was blocked and fell nicely to Joselu who himself turned and shot past Timo Horn into the bottom left hand corner. 1 nil Hannover and the energy was buzzing.
Hannover were playing very well in the opening of the first half and dominating Cologne, shots were coming from all angles. One in particular from Briand went over the bar and over the protective net and was caught by a guy in the first row. Nothing too spectacular there, happens all the time, but the guys reaction was brilliant. Normally when the ball goes into the crowd, it gets thrown straight back to the ball boy, but this guy catches the ball, holds onto it and takes out his mobile and starts taking some “selfies” of himself with the ball. He then hands it to his friend who does the same. All this time the poor ball boy is just standing there waiting quietly. Once they got enough pictures they did return the ball to ball boy.
Half time and I was now starting to see why Cologne had only scored 2 goals in 4 games, their finishing in the warm up was excellent but they lacked the ability to get into those positions during the first half. Then, over the stadium speakers, just to get us all in even more of the mood, “I Gotta Feelin” by Black Eyed Peas with the line “I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night”, 1-0 up and I agree with them, lets hope for more of the same in the second half.
The Cologne team was out after the HT break a few minutes before even the referee. They started the second half strongly but rarely looked like getting back on level terms. A few glimpse and nice header that was comfortably parried by Zieler was about the height of it. This started to look like a game that was just going to peter out in a 1-0 scoreline. Hannover starting to take their time over every goalkick, throw in, etc and Cologne trying to inject some urgency which had a bit of a comical response. The ball goes out for a thrown in and the Cologne player runs after the ball, turns and restarts with a throw in. At the same time a ball boy throws a second ball and we have two Cologne players taking the throw in at exactly the same time 10 yards apart. Referee blows for two balls on the pitch and by Cologne trying to speed up play they actually slowed it down. Something was telling me that this was not going to be Cologne’s day.
A little of complaceny was starting to creep in around the 70 min mark from both the players and the fans until I looked over and saw Tayfun Korkut going nuts on the sideline and even at one time enting a few meters onto the pitch to make his point, Hannover responded and the fans responded in kind, the atmosphere was back, singing, clapping and cheering the team over the finish line.
Full Time, unbeaten this season at home!! Unreal!
While this game will not go down as one of the classic encounters that I’ve experienced in the stadium, let’s look at the positives; 3 points, 3rd in the table and the bonus of a clean sheet. This means 9 points from the 3 home games so far. If only Hannover could play every Bundesliga game at home! So, the excellent start to the season continues and with two consecutive away games coming up the next visitors to the HDI fortress are Borussia Mönchengladbach on the 18th October at 15:30. Auf gehts Hannover!
Hannover 96 1 – 0 FC Köln
1-0 Joselu 6 mins
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