Vielleicht Hertha

By: Abby | July 13th, 2009

So, where were we?

The Battle of Berlin ended in a 5-3 win for Hertha. A festive Alte Forestei was treated to two goals from Artur Wichniarek, and one each from Amine Chermiti, Raffael, and Valeri Domovchiyski. Also a laser show. And fireworks. (And three goals from their own team.)

Having not watched it (work gets in the way of everything, again), I can’t say much about it, other than I would have loved to be there. It seemed like a great time and a wonderful day out in Berlin. And it’s impossible to say much about a friendly this early in preparations, especially one that’s more of an event like this one was. However, to quote something I once read, it was particularly pleasing to see our goalscorers score. There’s going to be a lot of pressure on those four to duplicate what Voronin and Pantelic did. It’s nice to see them get started early.

And just as we can’t read too much into a friendly win right now, we can’t read too much into a friendly loss, either. We played the newly-promoted (in the Austrian Bundesliga) Wiener Neustadt on Saturday, and lost 2-1. The entire team (barring young goalkeeper Christoph Gäng) was swapped out at the half, and they’re so new to pre-season that you can’t read much into the result. However, Wichniarek scored again. And that’s nice.

What the friendlies are showing is that we could possibly use a real replacement to Simunic, or at least another defender. One that we’re apparently already in talks with is the Tunisian Hamdi Rouid. He’d join Chermiti and the possibility of other countrymen, as well.

The most interesting story I’ve read, though, is Christoph Metzelder talking about going to Berlin. Metzelder’s Spanish career is noteable only for its injuries, but when he’s fit his quality is obvious. He was excellent at Borussia Dortmund and even despite his constant injury-proneness, I wouldn’t mind having him on the roster.

That doesn’t mean it will actually happen. Michael Preetz says that we’ve made no contact. Plus, Madrid would want money and I can’t imagine his salary being in our range. Still, though, that he’s even talking about it signals a change in the attitude towards Hertha. Berlin itself is a fantastic destination, but Hertha has never been much of one. Is that changing? It seems to be so.

Whether my hunch is true or not, it does seem that Lulu’s in for a new contract anyway. He just signed a new one, but this one will be longer. And presumably heftier.

Oh, and if you want a Hertha article to read that sums things up pretty damn well, Deutsche Welle’s got one.