Weekend Trips

By: Abby | April 30th, 2008

Hertha and I both had weekend work-related trips, with the boys going off to Hanover and me to Chicago. Of course, my trip made me unable to watch theirs. In fact, it didn’t even let me see much of what happened until now.

And what a whirlwind of excitement I missed. Hannover 96 have been in good form this season and currently lie ninth. While we did beat them at the Olympiastadion, it wasn’t a particularly convincing win- the highlight was that the entire stadium was absolutely covered in snow. Also, Andre Lima scored a goal.

Anyways. Back to the present. While by all accounts we started brightly, by 19 minutes we were behind. Fit-again Steve von Bergen marked his return by deflecting a Mike Hanke shot into his own net. And if that wasn’t enough, a mix-up between Joe Simunic and Jaroslav Drobny handed Hannover a second goal on a plate. Two-nil down at the half.

But something happened in the second half- we came back. First, Hannover gave away a penalty that Sofian Chahed put away (I’m not entirely sure why he’s the penalty-taker, but it works so I’m not questioning it). Then, young Polish striker Lukasz Piszczek scored a frankly excellent goal (I’ve included video at the end of my post) to equalize. And open his scoring account for Hertha- this was his first one, and he picked an excellent time and way to do it.

The story though, of course, is Marko Pantelic as always. While the first Hertha goal came before Pante was on the pitch (he started on the bench), the second came with the Serbian striker definitely involved after coming on for Skacel a few minutes before. His contract wrangles continue, but he is proving his worth. I hope he’s also proving that he can be the sort of team player Lulu wants.

One who may not be is Joe Siminic. The veteran defender has been making quite a lot of mistakes lately. Saturday was just another. It’s hard to say what to do- he can be good when he wants to be, but he does have lapses. Lots of them. Either it’s in his playing or in his temperament. If we can get something for him and a good replacement from somewhere, I wouldn’t be adverse to seeing the big Croat go. But those criteria have to be met.

Anyways, I’m back now and I don’t have another tradeshow for another month, so that means I have time to catch up on all the Hertha gossip. Which there’s a surprisingly large amount of.

Oh, and before I forget: here’s Lukas!