Koln vs Hamburger preview - Stoger taking one game at a time

Cologne coach Peter Stoger plans to take things one game at a time as his side make their return to the Bundesliga this weekend.

Hamburg are first up for the Billy Goats, who have spent the past two seasons fighting to get back up from the 2. Bundesliga and succeeded last term under Stoger's leadership.

Yet the Austrian coach is not looking any further than Saturday's clash at the Mungersdorfer Stadion.

"Nobody is thinking of the derby with Monchengladbach or the games against Dortmund and Bayern yet," he said.

"The signs are positive and that encourages me for the coming games.

"We worked hard last season to earn games like these and we want to measure ourselves up to these top sides with the means we've got, and I'm confident we're well prepared in all areas."

These two clubs very nearly swapped places last season, with Hamburg needing a play-off to preserve their proud record of never having been relegated from Germany's top flight.

That was something of a rude awakening for the northern Germany side, who had started out the season with the clear goal of finishing inside the top six.

There are no such proclamations being made this summer, though, with their coach Mirko Slomka even seemingly preparing his excuses in advance for a potentially slow start to the season.

"We're in a process and we've got to move from one small objective to the next," he said on hsv.de.

"We're still lacking a bit of pace down the wings that we had hoped for from the new signings."

Nicolai Muller should provide that, only Slomka will have to wait another week before being able to award the former Mainz midfielder his debut.

Gojko Kacar, Maximilian Beister and Slobodan Rajkovic are also absent, meaning Slomka may pick the same team which beat Energie Cottbus in the first round of the DFB-Pokal last weekend.