After a humiliating opening defeat, Hamburger SV got their first points on the board in the 2. Bundesliga with a 3-0 victory at SV Sandhausen.

Khaled Narey and Rick van Drongelen scored in the first half, with Narey adding his second and Hamburg’s third after half-time, gifted to him by Marcel Schuhen.

In the end, it was a much more serene afternoon for the Red Shorts than their hosts would have liked to have given them.

Hamburg finally take to second-tier life

This was a first-ever competitive meeting between these two sides, and with the BWT-Stadion one of the smallest in German professional football, a real sign of how Hamburg have fallen. They made just two changes from the 3-0 shock defeat to Holstein Kiel, with Orel Mangala straight in after his loan from VfB Stuttgart whilst Pierre-Michel Lasogga also started. Leart Paqarada, debutant Kevin Behrens and Stefan Kulovits came in to the Sandhausen team that lost to SpVgg Greuther Fürth a week ago.

Sandhausen would have wanted to make things hard for the former Bundesliga champions but instead they had gifted them a goal within seven minutes. A back-pass was played to Marcel Schuhen, and his ball forward was missed by Aleksandr Zhirov, allowing Narey to run at him. That’s what he did, and when he arrived in the box he placed the ball through the legs of Schuhen for his club’s first-ever 2. Bundesliga goal and his first since moving from Fürth.

Lasogga, making his first start since his return from a loan at Leeds United last year, headed in a Douglas Santos cross soon after, but he was in an offside position and the goal was rightly disallowed. Rúrik Gíslason, who has had plenty of attention after playing for Iceland at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, then had a chance to level things up, but his shot in space went wide. A weak effort from Felix Müller was then easily held by Julian Pollersbeck.

An excellent pass from Santos nearly set up Lasogga again, but Schuhen did well to keep it out. The Sandhausen goalkeeper was pretty helpless though for the second goal. Another good ball from the right from Santos, this time a free-kick, found the head of van Drongelen, and like Narey earlier in the game, the 19-year-old scored his first goal for the club, a perfect header.

It had been a comfortable first half for Hamburg, but Pollersbeck was called into action before the break. Behrens’s attempted headed pass came back to him off the head of David Bates, and with a second go he decided to take aim, and an excellent strike had to be flipped over the bar by the young Hamburg goalkeeper.

Narey handed his second goal on a plate

Kenan Kocak would not have been happy with his side, and brought on Markus Karl at the break and Ken Gipson soon after. They threatened with a couple of corners, but they soon handed a third to Hamburg. Schuhen, looking to move the ball forward from the right edge of his box, tried to pass to Karl in the box, but he missed the defender and Narey pounced, with an empty net to take aim at. He will not score an easier goal all season.

Hamburg may have been feeling sorry for the hosts as they then tried to give them a goal back. A back pass from Lasogga turned into a cross for Fabian Schleusener, but the man on loan from SC Freiburg put the gift over. A poor ball from Pollersbeck then invited Gíslason to chip him from distance, but he couldn’t hit the target either.

Sandhausen tried what they could to at least get on the score sheet but Hamburg dealt with everything that came their way, and the same was true at the other end, with the visitors in no great hurry to add to their three goals. The situation also allowed Chrstian Titz to give some game time to 17-year-old Josha Vagnoman, who had previously made just one appearance for the club.

In the end it was a comfortable afternoon for the Red Shorts, who now turn their attention to a friendly against Bayern Munich in midweek before they start their DFB-Pokal, along with Sandhausen, next weekend.