‘Torodde’ starts as he means to go on

After the 3-0 defeat in the DFB-Pokal to Dynamo Dresden on Monday night, Hamburger SV were in crisis before the league season had even begun.

Four days later, and everything doesn’t seem so bad, and there was no surprise over who they had to thank – Simon Terodde.

‘Torodde’ was brought in for the sole purpose of scoring the goals to finally fire them back into the Bundesliga, and with two goals in the opening night 2-1 win against Fortuna Düsseldorf, he didn’t need long to remember why he thrives in the 2. Bundesliga so much.

The first was a penalty, which was soft at best with Florian Harthez catching Jeremy Dudziak, but the second was a trademark poacher’s goal, set up by Dudziak, who was another of the bright spots for Daniel Thioune’s new side.

Terodde’s track record in this league is something else. In his last three seasons in the second tier, he has scored 25 goals for Bochum, 25 for Stuttgart and 29 for Köln. He is now just one goal behind the all-time record held by former Düsseldorf striker Sven Demandt.

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If Hamburg are to succeed in achieving promotion at the third attempt, they will need him to match those exploits, especially given their tendency to collapse in the final stages of the season.

The late Matthias Zimmerman goal nearly brought the same old jitters out even here, and it remains to be seen if they are really any stronger than they have been in the previous two seasons. Terodde’s goals guarantee nothing, especially for HSV.

There were other bright spots in their performance though. As well as Dudziak’s good display, the new centre-back pairing of Stephan Amborsius and Mortiz Heyer looked secure – although it is true that they were barely tested by a lacklustre Düsseldorf attack.

Bearing in mind Amborisus had played just three senior games before this, and Heyer only signed for the club 24 hours earlier, Düsseldorf could have done more to put pressure on the makeshift pairing.

Uwe Rösler’s side didn’t look any more potent or threatening than they did at the end of last season. There is clearly still work for them to do.

It has to be said though that this was the kind of game that Hamburg won last season too, at least before the corona-break, but it was against the sides that sat back that they struggled. Fortunately, they have the man to breakthrough any defence in Terodde.