Not Quite as Planned, But Better Than Bayern

By: Abby | March 31st, 2008

Why do we keep dropping points to Cottbus? Do we think the name Energie is cool? (It kind of is, I must admit.) Because we don’t have much of anything that can be called a derby, so we must do our best to keep the one we have in the Bundesliga? Because Chancellor Merkel makes us?

Whatever the case, we lost on Sunday. Even after going ahead- after nice work from Steve von Bergen (his saved shot started it all off), Pante, and Raffael, Miniero popped up and sent it in. It was his first goal since his debut for Hertha and it looked like smooth sailing. (Despite Cottbus’ “offside” goal a few moments before, of course.)

But, alas, that was not the case. A fine Ervin Skela free-kick leveled the score just before the half. Then, in the second, Lukasz Piszczek gave away a penalty. What he was doing there I don’t know, as he’s supposed to be a striker. Which showed in the penalty give-away, really. Skela duly came up again and put it away. And that was that, really, despite outshooting Energie by far (something like 22 shots?) and also having a goal pulled back for offsides (Miniero again, oddly enough).

So Cottbus are out of relegation (that’s how tight the race is at the bottom), but due to all the other results nothing has changed and we’re still twelfth.

The bad news, though, is that Swiss central defender Steve von Bergen tore a muscle and will be out for several weeks. von Bergen, besides having a name that is always fun in Google translate (he always shows up as ‘by mountains’), has been quite strong lately. He works well in Lulu’s 3-5-2 system, which is difficult for any defender. Most of all, I’m not sure exactly how we’ll replace him. After he went off against Cottbus, Gojko Kacar took his place in defence, with Pal Dardai heading into midfield. And we saw how that went. Lulu hasn’t quite had the time or funds to revamp the squad to his liking, and it’s not the deepest. So let’s cross our fingers we get through this not hugely scathed. At least we’ll have Josip Siminic back for the next game against Bremen.

After all, if Duisburg beat them, we’ve got some kind of shot, right? (I am forever an optimist.)

2-1 Energie Cottbus vs. Hertha Berlin | Goals
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