And Repeat!
By: Abby | February 2nd, 2009Back in August, an incongruous 2-0 away win over Eintracht Frankfurt heralded the beginning of the season. Five months and 36 points later, an incongruous 2-1 home win over Eintracht Frankfurt leaves us at second in the table, two points behind the leaders.
Frankly, incredible.
Saturday’s game was one much like the one’s we’ve been winning all season- slightly narrow, slightly lucky, slightly down to a fortunately healed Jaroslav Drobny (it was thought that he wouldn’t be back in time for the game). Marko Pantelic surprisingly started- Lulu said that his intuition said play Pante- and repaid that by opening the scoring on 17 minutes. Arne Friedrich’s cross was blocked, flew into the air, and ended up at Andriy Voronin, who attempted a bicycle kick for some reason. It didn’t work, but Pante nipped in and scored off the rebound.
This was definitely Pante’s game- at 33 minutes he won a penalty off of Frankfurt’s goalkeeper Markus Pröll, the striker being tripped by the goalkeeper’s arms. Cicero stepped up to take it…and missed it. Oops. (We’ve got something wrong with our penalties, don’t we?)
Wasn’t time to linger on it, though. Halftime came and went, and six minutes after that Pante unleashed a fantastic solo effort from outside the box for the second goal. As Frankfurt hadn’t looked all that threatening, we seemed to be doing well. Which of course meant that we had to go and let them back in the game just a few minutes later, with ex-Herthaner (how many of them are there in the Bundesliga? it seems every team has one) Benjamin Köhler firing in at close range. After that Frankfurt got their confidence back, and spent the rest of the game testing Drobny. Fortunately, the Herthaner of the Hinrunde was up to the task and we ended up not having to rue that missed penalty after all.
The result was three more points, and the result of that result and all the other results means that we’re now in second place. Quietly, without fanfare, we’ve done excellently, much better than anyone could have ever expected. While the Bundesliga isn’t so regimented as, say, the English Premier League (where the running order seems to be picked ahead of time), no one expected us to be one of the teams up at the top numbers. Or two points off the top spot. Two points! Dieter Hoeness is the highest-ranked Hoeness! Holy crap, you guys.
I’m too weird about jinxes to say that we’re actually in a title race- we’re not, seriously- but you can’t argue that Lucien Favre hasn’t done a fine job in charge. We may not be as impressive/flashy as Hoffenheim, and pundits argue that our wins are more often lucky than not, but we do have things going for us now that we didn’t before. We’re now a side of discipline and belief. We believe we can win. We’re effective and work hard. It’s a difficult mentality for a manager to instill in any team, even a team that has a past reputation for that kind of thing. To put it in Hertha is even more impressive. 
So I’m very pleased with the news that Lucien Favre has extended his contract, by a year, so that now it expires in 2011 instead of 2010. It’s an early extension, with an apparent salary increase, and if the Berliner Morgenpost is to be believed, prompted by a concrete offer from an unnamed Premier League club. While I welcome Cufré and Babic, this is the signing I’m the most pleased by.
Speaking of transfers, it looks like the Marko Pantelic drama will drag on longer and longer. In short, since it’s tedious: he’s not leaving right now, but he’s likely leaving in the summer for free, as he wants more money (which he’s said himself, clearly). Oh, and his wife is six months pregnant with their second child, so congratulations.
And while I’ve said that I will not countenance discussing us in terms of a title race, I can’t help but share this little tidbit that a friend helpfully translated for me from the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s fun predictions: On matchday 34, Bayern and Hoffenheim still are equal in points. Thanks to the better goal difference, Hoffenheim qualify directly for the Champions League. Champion is Hertha Berlin, even though Simunic is red-carded. Berlin is a fan-mile and from the balcony of the townhall, Lucien Favre says ‘I’m sorry I have to say it, but our ball-conquering still is not perfect’.
That’s Lulu for you, isn’t it?
Category: Team News
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Actually a properly made up Lulu quote needs to include a lot of “das ist klar”s (smth like that’s obvious). So the proper quote is “Berlin are champions, that is obvious. I’m sorry I have to say it, but our ball-conquering still is not perfect, that is obvious. It was limit.”
It’s really hard to seriously consider Hertha to be in the title race at the moment, despite them being in second place. They just constantly are involved in games that are so close, that you feel that this team could just as well lose all their remaining matches. But they already put 8 points between them and the non-UEFA Cup spots. That’s something. I have to admit that Hertha winning the title would have the biggest comedic value though – in a very positive way!
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Germany
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Great start to the second half of the season, not brilliant play but eh it’s Hertha, it might not be pretty but it is effective.
Isn’t it fun to even talk about the possibility of winning it, even when the conversation finishes with – but it’ll never happen. No one picked Stuttgart to win it and then ta da – they did. The real test comes in 2 weeks when take on Bayern at home. We haven’t beaten them for years and if we can then we can dream!
Posted from
Germany -
Awww. As a student of German myself, those kind of vocal ticks are really endearing. But I agree, Jan- that’s how I feel about the title race too. We’re not ever convincing enough for it to actually make sense, and it seems that we could lose every game we’ve been winning.
But, on the other hand…
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United States
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