Bavaria Part One
By: Abby | December 8th, 2007
It’s double-Bavarian in the two games before the winter break, with a visit to Nürnberg tomorrow before a visit from Bayern Munich next week. It’s a challenging way to close out the first half of the season, although not at all hopeless.
First up is the away trip to the easyCredit-stadion. While 1. FC Nürnberg finished in 6th place- as well as German Cup winners- last season, it hasn’t at all been the same this season. In fact, Hertha are traveling to visit a Nürnberg team in the relegation zone (17th at the time of this writing, although I believe it was 16th before the weekend and Duisburg’s draw with Bayern Munich). In fact, they lost to Duisburg last league game.
That doesn’t mean they should be taken lightly, though. They may have lost to Duisburg last weekend, but they did beat AZ Alkmaar during the week with two late goals at home. Their recent home record is much stronger than the away record- while they were beaten away by Duisburg and Armenia Bielefeld, their last league home game was a 2-0 win over Borussia Dortmund, while a 5-1 drubbing of Eintracht Frankfurt is still in recent memory. They also have a very well-liked and respected manager in Hans Meyer (who spent a brief period of time with Hertha in 2004), who’s also the cover star of the German edition of FIFA Manager 08. They’re not to be taken lightly despite their lowly league position.
From what I can tell they have a mostly full side, although there’s a doubt about Russian striker Ivan Saenko. He has a knee problem and will be facing a fitness test before the game.
On our end, we’re out most of the wide players. Lucio, of course, is out (get well soon!), as are Patrick Ebert and Łukasz Piszczek. There’s some talk of giving another chance to Swede Tobias Grahn, who is very pretty but not much else. To add more injuries and some potential insult, Gilberto has the flu (is that why he needs more rest time?) and Pante has has an adductor problem. They’re both doubtful. Wonderful.
This is a great chance to pick up some points before the break and a definite chance to improve our away record. We can’t expect it to be easy despite Nürnberg’s league position, though. Still, I’m cautiously hoping for a win, as it’s probably more likely that we’ll take points against this Bavarian team than the other one.
C’mon, Hertha!
Category: match preview
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Comments
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Oh oh, you might have just pissed of the one Nuremberg fan that comes checking by our blog every two weeks. While Nuremberg is located in the federal state of Bavaria, their region is called Franconia and they refer to themselves as Franconians. They hate it when they are called Bavarians, as that happens quite often.
I’m not sure about this match. Nuremberg is the last team I would like to see in the relegation zone and a win could get them out of there. But I need Hertha to perform well and get into the right rhythm for the Bayern Munich match, where I need them to produce a big upset, so that Werder Bremen can overtake them in the table.
Posted from
Germany
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You know, I thought about including a clause about Franconia, as it came up in my research, but for some reason I didn’t.
Perhaps I should have, looking at the current scoreline. Damn your internal politics I’m still learning about…
Posted from
United States -
Hmmm, it’s not looking good for Berlin indeed. This could be the third straight defeat for Hertha. I wonder to what extent Lucio’s injury played a role in this? He was Hertha’s best summer signing, and it seems they lost their balance. They were pretty high up in the table not so long ago…
Posted from
Germany -
I think Lucio’s been a big loss. We’re definitely missing something without him. Injuries in general right now is a big concern. We could use Ebert back as well. Our squad isn’t really very deep, so losing Lucio and Ebert is a big problem. We don’t have good backups…
Posted from
United States -
There needs to be some serious soul-searching going on during the winter break. We better find some new talent in Serbia in January, get our side healthy…and hopefully get rid of Gil.
Posted from
United States -
I concur, Ben. We definitely need more up front than Pante, great as he is. I’m glad the winter break is coming up, since that’ll give a chance for the injury list to shorten and hopefully to rediscover some of the form from the start of the season. And maybe a few additions to help that out…
Posted from
United States -
Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about Berlin’s next match. If Munich can draw with Duisburg and just barely squeak past with a win against Bielfeld, Berlin can count on slipping at least 3 past the listless, lazy Bavarians.
Posted from
United States -
Knowing my/our luck, this will be the game when Bayern remember they’re supposed to be steamrolling the league.
Posted from
United States -
[...] so talking about Bavaria last time didn’t much help. Clearly, the Franconians were upset that I’d called them Bavarian, [...]
Posted from
United States
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