HSV Coach Polzin on His Contract: “All in good time”

Even after Hamburger SV’s rocky start to the Bundesliga season, coach Merlin Polzin isn’t worried about his new contract. “No one needs to worry about me, my thoughts, or anything else—we’ve built something here over the past few years,” Polzin said ahead of Sunday’s match (3:30 p.m./DAZN) against RB Leipzig. 

Kathleen Krüger, the new sporting director who has been in office since July 1, has “rightfully gotten a sense of how we work as a coaching staff and what has happened here in recent years.” Very productive discussions have taken place. “No worries, no panic, and no unease,” the 35-year-old said, summarizing the situation regarding his new contract, “but everything in its own time.”

Polzin’s successful track record

Polzin’s contract expires at the end of the season. By the end of 2024, he had risen from assistant coach to interim coach and then to head coach. In May 2025, Polzin led HSV back to the top division and confidently kept the team in the league last season. 

Similar to last year, the start of this season has been a struggle with a similarly newly formed team. Ahead of the third matchday, Hamburg sits at the bottom of the table with zero points and a goal difference of 0–7. Last Sunday, they suffered a 0–5 loss to FSV Mainz 05.

Polzin: Poor Start to the Season “Is Annoying”

“Of course it’s annoying—that’s completely obvious,” said Polzin. “Now it’s just extremely important. We want to work, we want to dive into the details, be totally clear about them, and be very consistent.”

He is hopeful that things will start looking up soon. “What I experience day in and day out with the team—how they work, how passionate they are about HSV, and how very, very critical they’ve been of themselves—that’s what simply gives me confidence, even for the challenges ahead,” he said. 

“No excuses, no alibis”

He said he didn’t want to talk at all about “the fact that we need time and that all of this will take a long time,” he continued. “We’re not looking for excuses, we’re not looking for alibis, but we know what we need for our soccer, and that’s simply to invest in teamwork.”

You just have to look at which players have already taken the field together for HSV in the past. “There weren’t all that many, and that’s part of the truth,” Polzin emphasized. And yet, the 0–5 loss to Mainz “might have also contributed to some extent to making us more realistic.”