Hamburger SV 2019/20: Their defensive system – scout report

Hamburger SV currently sit in the first position of the 2. Bundesliga with 20 points out of their first nine games. They drew against Jahn Regensburg and Darmstadt and lost the derby against St. Pauli on the sixth matchday. VfB Stuttgart sit in second position having also collected 20 points. The big difference between the two teams is their goal difference. Hamburger have a value of 14 having scored 21 goals and conceded just seven. On the other hand, Stuttgart have got nine goals against them and were able to score 15 times.

So, their defence, as well as the offence of Hamburg, performed better than in Stuttgarts case. Besides, Hamburger SV have got the lowest xG-value of the whole league with 0.86. In this tactical analysis, we will look at the defensive system and tactics of HSV which are one of the reasons for their successful season so far.

Formation and players

In this campaign until now Dieter Hecking has used exactly two formations which are quite similar and have just one difference. He lined his team up either in a 4-1-4-1 or a 4-2-3-1 formation and the only variation can be seen in central midfield. Hamburg either played with one defensive midfielder and two more offensive players in front of them. In the other case, they used a double-pivot and a more advanced man behind the single striker.

But Hecking doesn’t just change the system from game to game, but also sometimes during the match depending on the situation. When they need to defend a lead, for example, Hamburger used the 4-2-3-1 formation since then they have two men in front of the back four. On the other hand, when they have to fight back, they prefer the 4-1-4-1 formation to have one more player in the offence.

Daniel Heuer Fernandes has this season featured in every game between the sticks while the centre-back Rick van Drongelen, as well as the left-back Tim Leibold, played every single second in the 2. Bundesliga as part of the back four. Due to several injuries, they rotated on the second centre-back position as well as on the right-back position. In the defensive midfield, Adrian Fein has also played every single minute. On all the other positions, Hecking has rotated. However, this shows that the goalkeeper, two players of the back four, as well as the single defensive midfielder and part of the double pivot respectively, know each other well since they always play together. This gives a defensive structure and the whole team a certain kind of self-confidence.

Pressing scheme

They varied mostly between two different tactics as we will see now in this analysis. On the one side, they used a high pressing while in other situations they sat back deeper in their 4-1-4-1 and 4-2-3-1 system respectively. We will now firstly look at the scheme which they used when they executed the high pressing.

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