Matchless Preview/Herthaners Away
By: Abby | November 16th, 2007It’s Friday, which normally means writing a match preview. However, it’s international week, which means there’s no match to write about. However, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on in the Hertha world, or that all our players get a week off. A lot of the squad are off with their countries. Let’s hope they come back intact.
Captain Arne Friedrich is off with Germany, who have already qualified for Euro 2008. In fact, the group is already set, with the Czech Republic qualified as well. So his qualifiers against Cyprus and Wales are perhaps not the most important games to be played in the upcoming days. They’re not exactly meaningless, though, as good results will see the Germans top their group and be in a good state for Austria and Switzerland.
Top scorer and alleged Chelsea target (scroll down) Marko Pantelic is off with Serbia, despite a calf problem. They take on Kazakhstan and Poland in a very tight qualifying group, with Serbia four points behind leaders Poland, three points behind second-placed Portugal, and tied with fourth-placed Finland. Poland just need victory over Belgium to qualify, which makes the other spots very interesting indeed. Good luck, Pante.
Josip Simunic is part of the Croatia squad that is looking to spoil England’s Euro 2008 dreams. He’s also pissed at Bild over the way they covered his decision to go to anger management. Please don’t hurt me, Joe, I kid because I care.
The most annoying international departures from the group are that of Gilberto and Mineiro, who are both off with the Brazil squad for their qualifiers against Peru and Uruguay. While it’s always great to have Brazilian internationals on the team, the close proximity of their Wednesday qualifier to the game against Karlsruhe next Friday means that they’re ruled out from the trip to the southwest. Karlsruhe have been surprisingly good since their promotion this season (they were the 2. Bundesliga champions) and feature few, if any, international players in their squad, which means that they will be rested while we will have the squad back for about a day. Also, we’ll be missing two of our best players.
Anyway. Steve von Bergen will join with the Swiss squad for their friendly against Nigeria, while Fabian Lustenberger will be playing for the Swiss U-21s against Serbia. In other youth international news, Solomon Okoronkwo is playing for the Nigerian Olympic team in Ghana, and Patrick Ebert (he of the fan-club T-shirt) will be up against Iceland in a friendly with the German U-21s.
Also, two youth players, Sascha Schünemann and Abu-Bakarr Kargbo, have been called up for the Germany U-16 game against Tunisia, with Tim Scheffler and Maximilian Zimmer on standby.
In non-international news, Hertha is using the absence of a good chunk of the squad as an opportunity to test a pair of young players, Csaba Ponczok of Hungary and Ghanian striker Emmanuel Clottey, who scored twice in a training match this week and seems to have impressed Favre. Clotty is 20, while Ponczok is just 16.
Hertha are also allegedly interested in Andreas Hinkel, the former Stuttgart right back who signed for Sevilla in 2006 only to find himself mostly on the bench. He’d be a good buy for Hertha, in my opinion.
And that’s about it for this Friday evening (it’s already nearly dark in Seattle at quarter to 5). Good luck to all the boys this weekend and Wednesday, and let’s hope they all come home safe!
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