A Much Better Weekend

By: Abby | December 17th, 2007

Note to self: remember to name the correct historical region of Germany in each match preview.

The mighty Bayern Munich came to visit, and left with only a point. A fine result, I’d say, and very encouraging going into the winter break. Bayern may be having some problems of late, enough to write a blog about, at least, but it’s nice that we were actually able to take advantage of it.

A lot of commentators after the game were disparaging of Hertha’s defensive style against the Bavarians, but I see it differently. Which is probably expected, considering I’m the Hertha blogger and not the Bayern one, but even still. The fact that Hertha managed to play a defensive game at all, and keep it up for 90 minutes, is hugely encouraging.

After all, look at how they’ve been playing lately. It was 3 losses in a row before this, to Nürnburg, Leverkusen, and Karlsruhe. The Nürnburg and Leverkusen losses were particularly bad, especially from a defensive standpoint. After those, you’d be excused for thinking that Hertha didn’t actually have defenders. So to watch them against Bayern on Saturday was uplifting. They looked…good. The defense was…mostly solid. Steve von Bergen, Josip Simunic, and Arne Friedrich all impressed me, nullifying the Bayern front line and being both brave and clean in the tackle. What did get through was dealt with well by Drobny- certainly, he’s proved to be an upgrade over what we had before.

There was even a stretch in the first twenty minutes of the second half where I thought we might even somehow end up with a win. We attacked well and forced Rensing (I like him less than Adler and Neuer, Jan) into some good saves. In fact, let me go out on a limb here- if our offense consisted of more than Marko Pantelic, we’d have scored in that stretch and probably won. Unfortunately, our offense consists entirely of Marko Pantelic at this point.

All in all, though, it was a hugely encouraging day. The defense proved that they can play, and that somewhere, with proper motivation perhaps, they have skills. Going into the winter break having held Bayern will give the whole team confidence for the next half of the season. Hopefully Favre and Hoeness can swing a few key additions, and some of our injured players (like Ebert) will come back ready to go. I’m actually thinking that there’s something to build on, and perhaps Lulu is too.

Speaking of key additions, it’s being reported that Hertha and FC Zurich have reached an oral agreement regarding Raffael. The price still has to be agreed upon, with Zurich wanting €5 million for the striker and Hertha wanting to pay less, but things appear to be coming together. I’m hopeful for the success of this one. We need more firepower up front and while I can’t say I know Raffael particularly well, people are saying good things about him. I’m also trusting Lulu’s judgement on this, as I’ve said before. He knows the player as well as anyone, and has wanted him back since arriving. I shall knock on wood, or some such.

Highlights, from GolTV this time.