Someone Heard A Rumor, That Someone Has To Pay

By: Abby | October 1st, 2009

Claims and counter-claims litter the papers.

The facts: Lucien Favre is gone, after being one of the most feted coaches in Germany. Upon leaving, the also-fired Harald Gämperle, Favre’s long-term aide, said that the players were the reason for his sacking, as they’d “never worked under such a good coach.”

Needless to say, the papers love this.

The rumors center around club captain Arne Friedrich. The 30-year-old from Bad Oeynhausen has not been known to be controversial- rather the opposite. His detractors often say that he’s too quiet, too mild-mannered. He’s written a cookbook. But fans and the newspapers have zeroed in on Arne as the reason behind the sacking.

The troubles started at the end of last season, when he came back from injury with two games left in the season. Favre decided not to play him, thinking he wasn’t quite up to fitness (or perhaps other reasons); Arne was peeved. (Later, Favre was proven right as Friedrich’s injury reoccured on Germany’s trip to Asia.) And while no one at Hertha, bar perhaps the unfortunately-injured Gojko Kacar, has been in good form, his poor form has stood out. Add that to a series of quotes that, while rather mild-seeming at first, aren’t exactly captainly- first saying that the team lacks quality, and then saying that there was nothing he could do about the playing situation (”some understand my language, but not all”) and it does seem that the papers have something.

As Jan touched on earlier, Arne has a bit of a history with this. He says things that on the surface are mild, but when you look at it, are nothing of the sort. A fight with Marcelinho in 2005 led him to note that, while he wasn’t making a comment, respect was the A and 0 of mutual success. He used the drama with the German national team to talk about how rude he found the captain. Looking through Arne’s career, it does seem to be a trend.

Compounding the trend is his recent form, which has been a bit less than captainly to say the least. His poor performances and indifferent attitude were commented on before the sacking. He was even asked by Michael Preetz whether he was playing badly on purpose. Whether he was or not is a damning statement- either he was willing to sabotage the team he’s supposed to be a captain of to get rid of a coach he didn’t like, or that he’s not nearly as good as he’s supposed to be without a strong defender like Josip Simunic next to him.

It’s the latter that seems to be at the crux of it- many sources say that Favre was starting to think that not only was Arne not really captain material – which had been debated for a long time – but he wasn’t strong enough even to anchor the central defense. The dropping of Arne at the end of last season may have not even been fitness-related after all, with some speculating that Favre was planning for a future formation without him. And apparently earlier this season he’d refused to play in the right-back position that he often plays for Germany.

The other question mark is the role of Patrick Ebert, the local starlet. His relationship with Favre was strained due to Favre’s crazy idea that he should be disciplined for his unprofessional actions (such as getting drunk and breaking car mirrors). Bild, who seem to have forgotten how much they loved him last season, paints a more pro-player side of it, saying that he was “destroying the confidence” of players, but particularly Ebert and Friedrich. (Bild also claims that the players complained that they were working too hard.)

Arne says he’s no Trainer-Killer. But it’s hard to know what to think these days.

Oh, and games go on, almost unnoticed in the drama. Today we went to Portugal to play Sporting Lisbon. It was a poor game by most accounts, but we lost by less than we’ve been used to- only a 1-0, and lucky for Lisbon at that.

We’ll see where it all goes from here.