Nadir
By: Abby | September 22nd, 2009God, I hope so.
There’s nothing that can be said about that Freiburg game that doesn’t make me want to cry. It was an awful, awful game to watch as a Hertha fan, featuring a home team that looked as hopeless, hapless, and generally awful as I’ve ever seen.
If you want to know exactly what happened, who scored and who was particularly terrible, here’s a match report. I can’t bring myself to write one on my own. It’s one thing to lose, but another thing altogether to lose as terribly as we did on Sunday. Freiburg, a team that’s no great shakes, carved us up easily, and were two goals up by the time 15 minutes had passed. I hope you understand how little I want to relive it.
So where does that leave Hertha? Who even knows anymore. Injures to key players and poor form to the rest makes things seem pretty bleak, and just about everyone agrees on that. At the moment, it’s just hard for me to process what needs to happen and where it’s all gone wrong. As someone who spends a lot of time thinking and writing about Hertha, I’m worried. There are things that may happen that I don’t want to happen.
What’s galling is that it wasn’t until Freiburg that the team looked particularly dreadful- against Bremen they looked decent, against Mainz they were completely in control until the 80th minute. I’d often thought that one win would get the team on the right track again, and I’d been looking forwards to Freiburg to supply it. Instead, missing Gojko Kacar and Jaroslav Drobny, we completely capitulated to the headlines of crisis surrounding the team.
So it’s a team with no confidence and no hope that goes into Hertha’s least favorite competition. Even in good years Hertha often goes out of the DFB-Pokal in early rounds to lower-league opposition, and with the way things going the way they are, signs point to the same sort of result against 1860 Munich, tomorrow’s opponents. We’ll be playing die Löwen (who’ve not been in great form themselves, but managed two wins in their five games) at their home in Munich.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope that things are fixed, saved, turned around. I hope desperately.
That’s all there is left, really.
Category: Team News
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Hi Abby, I watched the match from the fan block behind the goal into which Freiburg popped the first 3. The match report does not do justice to how incredibly shit our defense was. Arne looked like he was on drugs, and Lulu’s now hanging by a thread.
For a bit of comic relief, I can offer an account of what happened to me on the way back from the stadium: http://blogs.dw-world.de/ballspiel
Warning — it’s not for the weak of stomach
Posted from
Germany
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It will get better, I think. The situation is shocking because this is supposed to be closer to the team Lulu wants, but obviously the depth isn’t there. It’s a shame about Voronin not being able to stay. But I think they can improve if they can turn the team mentality around.
Posted from
United States -
All the talk about the Voronins and Simunics of this world is completely irrelevant at the moment. Everything I read make it seem that Hertha simply don’t have the quality – and that is bullshit. Realistically Hertha are still on the same level as teams like Frankfurt, Gladbach or Cologne and have the better players (on paper) than e.g. Mainz and Freiburg and a couple of other teams. What is happening at the moment is really happening in the player’s heads. The players are insecure, possibly demotivated etc. and so things are no longer working out. The question is whether this downward spiral is still controllable.
Maybe not – Hertha are trailing 1860 Munich after an own goal by Bengtsson.
Posted from
Germany -
Sometimes I wonder if I could just smack the players around a little.
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United States -
Yes Jan, but almost no one knows downward spirals like 1860. Still in progress, we’ll see who’s more incompetent. Overall, most exciting Pokal day in quite some time thus far.
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United States -
Penalties with baby Buchert. Ah hell.
Posted from
United States -
One wonders how long the current rut will be tolerated. It seemed unthinkable back in May, but is it time for Lulu to move on?
Posted from
United Kingdom -
Well, Hertha really fought back, equalized and from there were clearly the better team and should have finished off 1860 in over time. But once it goes to penalties you can really bury all your hopes. Even a Hertha side in top form would lose 5 out of 5 penalty shootouts against the English national team – with the 4th in the series being quite close, admittedly.
In theory Hertha can take a lot of positives from the match, but the final result simply doesn’t really help the overall mood.
Now, the problem with sacking Favre is, that it would be extremely unfortunate.
Looking back at the season, it’s not like all of Hertha’s games were as desolate and awful as the one against Freiburg. There are simply a lot of details which added up to the mess the club is in. But as I mentioned earlier, the crap about the transfers in and out of the club and all the rubbish experts and the knewitallbefores come up with now needs to stop. One of the worst statements I heard from a captain of a Bundesliga team came from Arne Friedrich when he simply said the quality is missing. It’s the wrong attitude, gives the team a stupid excuse and sends out the overall completely wrong message. Now it’s simply time to start fixing all the little problems step by step. The spirit was there and the team needs to realize that even though they lost against 1860 and might lose against 1899, that this is the basis on which they can built a winning team again and work their way out of the crisis.
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Germany -
It’s almost beyond my comprehension that 1860 didn’t find a way give that match away. Maybe someone should have taken a dive in the box in extra time, it worked for Ribery. Well, I’d agree that simply dumping Favre in frustration in not the logical thing to do. But Hertha is rapidly approaching the point where logic no longer suffices. The real problem is that the schedule really works against them. I frankly don’t see them picking up points this weekend. Then, you’ve got probably the most difficult match on their European schedule, no mental uplift there. Then Hamburg comes to town. I think if Favre can’t at least squeeze a point out of the Hamburg match, short term expediency has to finally overrule long term logic, and he’s gotta go. They can then use the qualifying break to try to get everyone’s head on straight. I guess Bild thinks he doesn’t even have that long.
Posted from
United States -
” I guess Bild thinks he doesn’t even have that long.”
BILD never thinks, BILD always claims.
But you are right, there are breaking points that are beyond logic. Especially when more and more factors are out of your control and are starting to stack up against you: fans, media and in the worst case people in your own club or players in your team who might not/no longer trust/like you and see a chance to get rid off you.
Lucien Favre is a long term solution. If Hertha ends up needing a short term solution, it would be a shame. Anyway, Fred Rutten is having a great time at PSV but he was powerless when confronted with all the negative momentum that built up at Schalke last season. Lucien Favre will surely also have a great time wherever he’ll end up being the same time next year.
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Germany -
Good discussion — much better than the stuff being written in the Berlin papers. Gegenbauer has said Favre’s job is only in danger if there’s a repeat of the Freiburg debacle. That’s the way to go, I think. If the team plays decently and is fighting, keep the coach regardless of the scorelines. They’ll get a win and some self-confidence at some point. If they throw away matches in the first 15 minutes like they did against Freiburg, however, it’s a sign that the squad and the coach aren’t on the same page, and since you can’t replace the squad, Favre will have to go.
Posted from
United States -
Good reading as always, the blog and the comments too! I went to the games against Ventspils and Freiburg. Fun times well obviously apart from the result. Seems to me that with a lot of new players coming in, particularly foreign ones that it’s not easy to adapt and teamwork lacks. Can’t be easy for the likes of Ramos and Pejcinovic (however it’s spelt) et al to fit right in. I was also sorry to hear of Jefferson’s misfortune on the U-bahn! Viva S-bahn!
As always, keep up the delightful blog… and keep the faith!
Posted from
United Kingdom
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