Date: Friday, 3rd February 2017
Kick-off: 19:30 UK / 20:30 CET
Venue: Volksparkstadion, Hamburg.
Hamburger vs Bayer Leverkusen Preview
Hamburg is on a downward spiral at the moment as the team has lost three of their last four matches. They are currently in the bottom three relegation area of the German top flight table, second from the last place, four points ahead of cellar-dwellers SV Darmstadt.
Die Rothosen was romped by fellow bottom three team FC Ingolstadt, 3-1, on the road at the Audi Sportpark in their most recent Bundesliga fixture last Saturday, as per Vavel.
Ingolstadt scored the first three goals of the contest, courtesy of Pascal Gross, Markus Suttner, and Almog Cohen in the 14th, 22nd, and 47th minutes respectively, to take an insurmountable 3-0 advantage over the visitors.
Head coach Markus Gisdol’s side was able to score a consolation goal in the 63rd minute with a right-footed shot from outside of the box by Japanese defender Gotoku Sakai.
Meanwhile, Bayer Leverkusen lost a heartbreaking 2-3 affair to lowly side Borussia Monchengladbach right at their home ground of BayArena also last Saturday, the league’s official website reported.
Leverkusen zoomed ahead with a 2-0 lead in the first half after Jonathan Tah and Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez netted the first two goals of the match in the 31st and 34th minutes.
However, Gladbach was able to bounce back and pull off the come-from-behind victory with three goals in the second half, led by a brace by Lars Stindl in the 52nd and 58th minutes.
Gladbach forward Raffael netted the winning goal in the 71st minute to hand head coach Roger Schmidt’s squad their eighth loss of the season and third winless performance in the last three rounds of competitions.
Prediction and Predicted Lineup
Hamburg starting lineup (4-2-3-1 formation): Mathenia; Sakai, Papadopoulos, Mavraj, Douglas; Ostrzolek, Holtby; Waldschmidt, Gregoritsch, Kostic; Wood
Bayer Leverkusen starting lineup (4-4-2 formation): Leno; Henrichs, Tah, Toprak, Wendell; Bellarabi, Kampl, Aranguiz, Calhanoglu; Hernandez, Brandt
The predicted result is a tough 2-1 decision for Bayer Leverkusen.
