Back to earth, now?

It’s been an euphoric week for Hertha fans. After last week’s win we’ve been one of the stories of Europe, our unprepossessing little club without big-name stars or big-name spending in with a chance to win our first title in over 70 years. Hoffenheim? No way. We’re the story.

It hasn’t all been positive. In fact, most are otherwise. In some ways I can see how those who are particularly invested in the Bundesliga might be a little disturbed to see Hertha up so high. The general line is that Hertha’s position is completely inexplicable (the words “they’re not so good” come up a lot), and they’ll embarrass the league if/when they go to European competition. Particularly in the Champions League.

I can understand that point of view. I want Bundesliga teams to do well in Europe. But my response is, how can Hertha do any worse than the teams that have represented the Bundesliga recently? Schalke and Werder Bremen didn’t exactly distinguish themselves in the Champions League this year. You could argue Schalke had a bad draw, but even so. How can we be any worse? We may even surprise teams in Europe the way we surprise them in Germany.

But for that to even be a problem, we have to keep up our form. We have to make sure we continue on from last week. And we’ve got an extremely tricky away trip to <a href=http://wolfsburg.theoffside.comWolfsburg to try and do that with. The Wolves may not be at the level predicted by some at the beginning of the season (with Volkswagen’s money and Felix Magath, there was talk of a title challenge), but they’re still extremely dangerous in sixth place, 7 points behind us. Their form since coming back from break has been pretty good, a 1-1 draw at Köln followed by 2-0 wins over Bochum and Frankfurt. They’ll be without top scorer Grafite, who’s injured, and former Herthaner Ashkan Dejagah, who’s sick.

The game from the Hinrunde ended in a 2-2 draw, notable because it was a game we should have won and didn’t, rather than the other way around. This won’t be any easier to win- Wolfsburg hasn’t lost at the Volkswagen Arena all season. If history is anything to go by, it’ll be a draw. The last three games between us have been.

Pante and Gojko Kacar are still out, and they’ll be possibly joined by Patrick Ebert, who has an infected heel. Cicero is back from his suspension, which is nice. The most important thing is that we have all our defense, because really, they’re who we owe our position to. Joe Simunic has to watch out for yellow cards, though, as another would see him missing the ‘Gladbach game. (On the other hand, I’d rather have him missing ‘Gladbach or possibly Cottbus instead of Leverkusen or Stuttgart.) Speaking of Joe, a brief Bild article shows how he’s changed this season. His improvement, in play but especially in attitude, this season from last season is one of the reasons why I’m still hoping for Pante. Lulu can fix him, right?

Anyways, another interesting facet is that there’s likely to be quite a few Hertha fans in attendance- Wolfsburg is not even an hour away by train. The “Fan-Train” put on by Hertha sponsor Deutsche Bahn has been sold out for days, and they’ve already sold more 2,000 of their away allotment. It could be quite a good atmosphere over there.

It’ll be a difficult game, certainly. Confidence will be high in the club- I hope it doesn’t go so far into overconfidence. I’d be happy with any sort of points going into the Cottbus sort-of-derby, which is always inexplicably hard for us, especially since it’s followed up by games against top sides. We’re certainly safe from relegation now, but nothing else is guaranteed.

Category: match preview

Tags: match preview, vfl wolfsburg

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