I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday

By: Abby | March 24th, 2009

The way this season has gone, it only makes sense that when we do finally lose, it’s to the team that we always beat.

Grumble.

It was a bad day for us. There’s not much more that can be said. Sometimes we’ve been bad and still won; this time, we were bad and just bad. It’s not pleasant, but at least everyone is admitting to it.

We’ve come back well from losses before, so I’m more annoyed at the scoreline than worried. What I am worried about was one of the catalysts of our loss- the leaving through injury of Arne Friedrich after 25 minutes. It’s been the magic of Drobny, Friedrich, and Simunic that’s got us where we are, and judging by results, they all need to be in place for it to work. That was clear against Stuttgart, where Simunic was responsible for both of their goals. Three is the magic number, you know.

It’s frustrating for Arne himself, of course, as he was set to play in the central-defense role he’s so excelled at this season for Germany in their qualifiers. It’s something he doesn’t get to do very often – he’s been preferred at right-back – and he was no doubt looking forwards to it (Bild has him quoted as saying that “it’s total shit”). But the timing for us is pretty good, as today it was announced that if all goes well he should be back in two weeks. Since it’s international break, instead of being without our captain and defensive rock for those games (and losing a lot of ground in the league), we should have been back by the time the league resumes with the visit of Borussia Dortmund. Cross your fingers and knock wood, anyway.

Speaking of international breaks, Hertha is left with a rump squad for the next two weeks while the various qualifiers happen. Drobny’s been called up for the Czech Republic squad, Simunic is off with Croatia, Gojko Kacar and Marko Pantelic are away with Serbia, Pal Dardai is joining up with Hungary, Andriy Voronin is to Ukraine, and it looks like all the paperwork came through to make Maximilian Nicu a Romanian international.

So, two weeks to ruminate and hopefully get over the Stuttgart result. And, hopefully, get the important players fit…