cptaidan88 said:
I was wondering why hamburg are playing in red this year (or at least you certainly did against Galatasaray and Aston Villa)? I always thought your home colours were blue black and white, although I remember the friendly in pre-season you were wearing white.
Wearing red gives us one more reason to want to beat you....
Home colour white, away colour black and blue, European away colour red.
Regarding ManCity players: I think everybody is aware that City will have good players on the field, and maybe there is some extra respect for the likes of Robinho. But on the other hand everybody is aware, that pretty much everybody starting for Hamburg is an international and therefore capable of showing some brilliance in every game. Olic and Petric have shown it against a lot of international teams (including England and Germany btw), Mathijsen played even better for Holland than De Jong did during the Euros (what Euros, you will ask, I know ;) ), and Rost has been one of the best German keepers for 10 years (despite Kahn, Hildebrand, Enke, etc). The most interesting part is, that everybody loved De Jong, but he is not really missed, much less so Kompany, who very rarely showed true brilliance. Alex Silva for example has had more good games in a much shorter time span than Vince.
Oh well, overall I guess it is normal that fans of one club idolize their own players and therefore talk them up for their own comfort somehow. (see English midfield before every tournament, etc. Probably don't have to tell you about the "Rooney is the best striker in world"-rubbish, or you don't have to tell me about the "Ballack, the great leader on the field"-crap...)
So I think, from a player-to-player comparison, City might have an 6-5 edge or so, but the team effort, luck, etc will decide these two games. Looking forward to it.