Dutch delight for pace-setters Hamburg

The Netherlands’ Eredivisie has long offered a rich banquet for Europe’s giants to feast upon. Late-80s stars Gullit, Riijkaard and van Basten led the way for such luminaries as Seedorf, Kanu and Davids; while van Nistelrooy, Tomasson and Makaay were among the best of the early-noughties crop. Though more recent exports such as Afonso Alves, Ryan Babel and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar have flattered to deceive in pastures new, there is a fresh new-wave starting to break on the shores of Europe’s major leagues.

Ajax captain Luis Suárez has been hotly linked with a January switch to Milan, while a couple of fellow young Eredivisie stars are already making an impact in the German top-flight. A major feature of Hamburg’s charge to the Bundesliga summit has been the vigour of their youthful front two: Marcus Berg, once Suárez’s replacement at Groningen, and Eljero Elia, previously with FC Twente.

The 1983 champions of Europe last season relied on two from three of Mladen Petrić, Ivica Olić or Peruvian livewire Paulo Guerrero, but long-term injury struck down both Petrić and Guerrero, while Olić left for Bayern during the summer. With oh-so-nearly-successful coach Martin Jol also departed (taking the hotseat at Ajax following agonising near-misses in both the Bundesliga title-race and the UEFA Cup final), rookie manager Bruno Labbadia was left with some tricky re-building work on his hands.

The purchase of Berg was something of a no-brainer, given his magnificent form at the European U-21 Championships last June. His goals, which propelled hosts Sweden to the latter stages, made the 23-year-old a wanted man throughout Europe – Fiorentina, Everton and Spurs among his supposed suitors. Though his brief yet sparkling CV featured 32 goals in 58 appearances for Groningen, strikers such as Alves, Huntelaar and Mateja Kezman have clearly demonstrated that a hatful of goals in the Netherlands provides no guarantee of success in faster, tougher leagues. Yet the portents so far bode well for the 6ft forward from Torsby.

Many burgeoning careers have stalled irretrievably after a big-money move, when a callow striker’s first goal remains stubbornly elusive. A desperate drought can ensue and sky-high confidence is quickly shattered. No such problems for Berg; a strike within three minutes of his Hamburg debut (as a late sub versus Dortmund) broke a club record and set him on his way to an electrifying start to the season at home and abroad.

Having already netted his first two international goals this season (though in vain, as Sweden missed out on a place at South Africa 2010), the former IFK Gothenburg forward has set the Europa League alight – the winning goal at Celtic Park last week followed hot on the heels of a twelve-minute brace in the 4-2 defeat of Hapoel tel Aviv. In the Bundesliga, five goals in his first nine games have done much to soothe his transition between contrasting football cultures. It was always likely that a player comfortable with the ball at either foot, providing a constant aerial threat and unerring coolness in the penalty area would enjoy a fruitful career, but Berg’s express emergence might go a long way towards filling the huge vacuum left by the recent retirement of another Eredivisie graduate, Henrik Larsson, from the Sweden set-up.

Making an early impact at international level has proved, too, well within the scope of Berg’s fellow summer arrival at the Nordbank Arena. Scorer of the only goal in the Oranje’s 1-0 Hampden triumph in September, electrifying winger Eljero Elia immediately brings to mind a young, über-confident Ajax-era version of Ryan Babel (when ‘end-product’ was still within the Liverpool man’s footballing lexicon) or perhaps could be talked of as the Dutch answer to Theo Walcott.

The 22-year-old winger offers the kind of quick tricks and liquid-hipped dribbling skills which so torment back-tracking full-backs. Allied with scintillating speed and – crucially – the presence of mind to create and score a bagful of goals, at any level: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL-6O94l308&feature=player_embedded, he’s a formidable opponent already. Elia truly shone under the guidance of Steve McLaren at Twente last season (though, standing top of the Eredivisie so far, they hardly seem to miss him) and thus earned an €8.5m move to the Bundesliga.

He, too, has excelled in his early appearances for a club intending to be an active participant in the inaugural Europa League final, which it hosts next May. The raw potential of both Elia and Berg was displayed most candidly in Hamburg’s spectacular 3-3 draw at Schalke’s Veltins-Arena on Sunday evening http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptnUCZIKeUA . For the opening goal, Elia’s alarming pace on the left wing splintered the Schalke defence and enabled him to cut back from the goal-line with such accuracy that Berg could hardly miss.

Late in the game, the Hamburgers had let a two-goal lead slip and were down to ten men, when the ageless Zé Roberto – how Bayern now wish they hadn’t failed to give the Brazilian ball-player a suitable contract - made a virtuoso slalom dash toward the Schalke area, feeding the ball to the well-positioned Berg to slot home cooly with his left foot. Elia, however, revealed just how unrefined his talent remains when later conceding possession carelessly inside the Schalke half, allowing the Ruhr side to steal a barely-deserved equaliser.

For now, Hamburg stay joint-top of a congested Bundesliga leaderboard. If they are to stay in such close proximity to the summit until season’s end and make that Europa League finale, it’s sure that their canny buys from the lowlands will be at the head of the push for honours.