The Pantelic Question

The big debate among Hertha parts (well, there’s something about a club election, but that’s not as tabloid-friendly and also I haven’t been planning a post on it for a while) is the issue of whether Marko Pantelic and Lulu Favre get along or not. Which is something to think about, to be sure, as Marko is our top scorer- and as I like to joke, with only a bit of humor, our entire offense- and Lulu is the manager that actually makes decisions about things. The tabloids who write things about Berlin, in the style of all tabloids anywhere, have taken a few things, picked a narrative, and ran with it.

That narrative? That Lulu doesn’t like Pante and wants to get rid of him.

Which, of course, is not entirely the truth. A grain of it, maybe, but a lot more…not-truth. It starts back around the beginning of the second half of the season, when Marko wanted to extend his contract and the club said it was premature, allegedly because they wanted to see whether he’d perform in the second half of the season or not (he doesn’t always). From there it went to reports that Lulu wasn’t happy with the way Pante plays in general, saying that he was perhaps not as versatile (I like the word “polyvalent” that Lulu always uses) of a player as Lulu normally likes, that he doesn’t train enough and is a bit lazy. Apparently, he doesn’t show up to training as much as he should. He can be a bit arrogant. He acts, well, like a star player.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Lulu wants to get rid of him. He certainly produces, after all. Maybe he can even be trained into the sort of player Lulu wants. And considering a lot of this inferring by the papers is done as a result of Lulu being slightly snippy with the press, it should be taken with a grain of salt- it’s about every other question he’s asked, and he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it any more. He’s not always press-savvy, Lulu. (Maybe he can learn, too.)

I love Marko Pantelic. Everyone loves Pante. It’s hard not to love the top scorer, after all. His goals are, as put, are the life insurance of Hertha. Also, I find him charming and like his hair, which is very important. The last thing I want is for Pante go to.

However…here’s where I cross my life as Hertha fan with life as an Arsenal fan. I try to keep the two identities separate, but there are parallels to be drawn. Not exact, of course, but not far off.

Arsenal were always reliant on Thierry Henry. As well they should have been- Henry was absolutely and utterly brilliant, and there’s nothing that can be said that can diminish that. However, when he started to fade, or wasn’t there, the team didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know how to play without Henry and especially didn’t know how to score goals without him. Everything they did went through Thierry Henry- the midfielders were always looking for him, the attacks needed him to form.

As we’ve seen lately, without Pantelic Hertha don’t entirely know how to score. (Even with him it’s not certain, although he was involved in the goal we did score against Cottbus.) Perhaps if the team loses its new figurehead and top scorer, the rest of the team will realize that they have to pick up the slack. They’ll have to learn how to play without thinking of Pante, work on their finishing, and perhaps be more versatile in general for it.

Not that I’m suggesting the cases are exact. For one, Henry had a much greater influence on Arsenal than even Pante has on Hertha. And Pante’s not the captain- that’s still Arne Friedrich (get away from him, Roma). But it’s worth thinking about that way.

And Lulu is not Arsene Wenger, as much as he’d like to be. Hardly a bad ambition in my admittedly biased opinion. He’s not Wenger, but he has proved to have some good opinions in regards to players and transfers. Raffael, who he fought so hard for, is proving why Lulu kept up in his interest. Gojko Kacar has looked good. And he’s got a great track record for spotting talent, such as Yassine Chikhaoui, at FC Zürich. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being an Arsenal fan, it’s that sometimes you just have to trust the manager. No one is perfect- not even Wenger- but if they have a decent history, they deserve a bit of a chance. Just the slightest benefit of the doubt. So if the price is high enough, because we should not let him go for pennies (that means way more than the few million pounds he was quoted for before), perhaps Lulu can be trusted to find his replacement.

And perhaps he already has. Bild reports that we’ve already agreed to sign Amine Chermiti of Etoile du Sahel. If that’s true, we’ve managed a pretty good coup there. The 20-year-old has been in high demand. Even if we (as I hope happens) don’t lose Pante, he’d be useful anyway.

So, to sum up. I don’t want to lose Marko Pantelic. We shouldn’t lose Marko Pantelic. But if we do lose Marko Pantelic, it may not be the end of the world.

Hopefully.

Category: Players, Team News

Tags: Players, Team News

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