After its third defeat in nine days, Hamburger SV is in the midst of a serious sporting crisis. The Hanseatic League lost 2:3 (0:1) against 1. FC Magdeburg, the team that was bottom of the table up to now and coached by former HSV coach Christian Titz, and thus missed the jump to the second place in the league. The chasing teams 1. FC Heidenheim and Fortuna Düsseldorf moved closer with their victories.

Heidenheim inflicted a 3:1 (2:0) defeat on relegated Greuther Fürth in their first match after the departure of coach Marc Schneider and are now fourth in the table, only two points behind the Hamburgers. Fürth are now bottom of the table behind fellow relegated Arminia Bielefeld. Düsseldorf took the momentum from the DFB Cup with them and stopped the negative trend of two recent league defeats with a 2-0 win at Karlsruher SC. Fortuna are sixth, five points behind HSV.

Mo El Hankouri scored the opening goal for FCM in the eleventh minute in Hamburg. Baris Atik scored again for the visitors seven minutes after the restart, Ransford Königsdörffer (58th) was able to shorten the gap before Julian Rieckmann (88th) restored it. The second HSV goal by Tom Sanne (90.+3) came too late. Practically at the final whistle, the crossbar stood in the way of Hamburg’s equaliser.

It was the second away win of the current season for the visitors. With this success, Magdeburg moved up to 15th place in the table.

Captain Patrick Mainka (9th), Tim Kleindienst (33rd) and Jan-Niklas Beste (56th, hand penalty) were responsible for Heidenheim’s success. Branimir Hrgota’s 52nd goal was not enough for Fürth, who are coached by interim coach Rainer Widmayer.

With his first goals of the season, Kristoffer Peterson (8/22) gave the self-proclaimed promotion contenders from Düsseldorf a comfortable early lead in Karlsruhe.