Van der Vaart: 'Fans' reaction shows what this win means'
Hamburg - Hamburger SV captain Rafael van der Vaart hailed a huge victory for his team against SV Werder Bremen on Sunday evening, citing the side's "belief" as crucial to picking up all three points.
Hamburger SV
bundesliga.com has the reaction from the 101st northern Germany derby...
Rafael Van der Vaart: We started the game really well, playing some great football for the first 20-25 minutes, then it became a bit of a battle. Of course it's a great feeling when you win 2-0 in a derby, but derby or not, these points are incredibly important and you could see that in the reaction of fans. Like I said, we played a good first 20 minutes, the way we can play, but then I had the feeling small details could have decided it. We believed we would win it throughout.
Heiko Westermann: We started really well, I think, for the first 15 minutes, but then the game lost its way a bit and there were lots of tackles going in. We were patient, though, and I've got to say that and we deserved to win. I think it was a fair game really. There were a few strong tackles, but nothing dramatic.
Johann Djourou: It was a good game. We stayed calm and believed in ourselves until the very end. We got the opener late on and the second one was good for us psychologically. Now we need to started preparing for our game against Augsburg.
Matthias Ostrzolek: We started the game well but then we lost our grip on things a bit. At the beginning of the second half we got back on track. We can be happy about the win today but tomorrow we need to start focusing on next week’s game in Augsburg.
Ashton Götz: It was a great game and it’s the highlight of my career so far. The fact that I set up the goal with my throw in is the icing on the cake. I think we deserved to win. We were very focused and dominated right from the start.
SV Werder Bremen
Zlatko Junuzovic: It's so disappointing and I've got to say I'm lost for words for the way we've conceded late on. We could have won this game. We tried to hit them on the counterattack and we had chances to take the lead, and we've really got to get the points here. Let's say a point would have been good, but in the second half we were the better team and we created one or two chances. It seemed like a goal was in the air. Then we conceded cheaply from a throw-in and that should never have happened.
Fin Bartels: It's sickening to lose a game like this. I don't think we took our chances well enough because we knew they were susceptible at the back and we could have won, but then they scored. We wanted to be solid at the back, but we also wanted to be courageous. We didn't manage that at the start, but we got better in the second half, only the final touch was missing.
Take another look at Hamburg's scrappy second goal, courtesy of the Bundesliga YouTube channel:
