Hamburger SV has moved its entire first-team squad, coaching staff and medical department into the visitors' dressing rooms at the Benteler-Arena in Paderborn, where the club will remain until every player has memorised the match in which it lost. The decision was announced by the club's sporting director, who described the arrangement as a matter of principle rather than logistics.
The move required the removal of two rows of spectator benches, the installation of a second physiotherapy table and the repainting of the away-team corridor in the club's colours. Club staff say the cramped space has forced players to share lockers with the kit men, and that the team bus now parks permanently in the car park so it is never more than a few metres from the scene of the defeat.
Training sessions have been restructured to take place only on the pitch, with each player required to walk the route from the tunnel to the centre circle before every session. Medical staff have confirmed that the long-term absence of one senior player will be recorded in the club's ledger as a diagnosis still being formally refined, a process that is expected to take the rest of the season.
Local residents in Paderborn have been asked to refrain from unscheduled visits to the stadium, though a supporters' group has organised a queue of several hundred fans willing to sit silently in the away stand while the squad trains below them. The club has promised that the camp will close once the coaching staff can describe the second half without raising their voices.