The Talk of the Town

By: Abby | November 17th, 2008

It’s mid-November and we’re still up there. Fourth in the league on 24 points, with another win in our pockets. It’s enough to make people start talking about us. Maybe. Perhaps.

Whatever the case, history repeated itself and Hamburger SV went down 2-1 to Hertha Berlin on Saturday at the Olympiastadion. HSV took the lead with a pretty fantastic Mladen Petric goal, after all of 12 minutes had passed. The teams had gone into the dressing room with that being the only thing separating the two.

Coming out, though, a different Hertha team took the field. Within a minute, Hertha had equalized, and then about a minute later, they’d taken the lead. The first was a cross from Sofian Chahed that found Cicero- I remember when he first came to Hertha and the management had talked up his heading ability as the reason they wanted the Brazilian. I suppose that they were right about that. It certainly wasn’t an easy header to make, being at an odd height when it came to him, but he made it. The second came from Maximillian Nicu setting up young Valeri Domovchiyski, who’d just come on at the half to replace Raffael. Nicu, after getting the ball from Voronin, found himself in quite a lot of space in the Hamburg box and cut the ball back to Domovchiyski, who finished with a neat little chip.

That was enough. Hamburg had enough time to hit the bar through Pitiropa, and there were some decent chances on both sides (perhaps more for Hamburg, but we had the lead, so). In the end there was nothing but Hertha’s fourth home win in a row, enough to pull us over Hamburg and put us into fourth. Still. We’re still fourth.

Martin Jol was cranky at the defeat, but Lulu was pleased, saying that the Hertha players showed character to come back and win the game after the poor first half. I think that’s fair, and I’m pleased. Again, fans of the opposition said that this was a lucky win for die Alte Dame, but this is, perhaps, the third or fourth time. Once or twice, they’re lucky wins. But by the fourth, fifth time? There’s more to it, and more to the team. We’re a solid team that works as a unit, that defends well, and has a bit of attacking class. We’re not perfect yet by any means, and I’m not really expecting to still be fourth in May (maybe I’m being pessimistic, as to not get my hopes up too much, although I do think that title talk is premature), but Lulu has done a fine job here. The talk about a title-challenging squad by 2010 doesn’t sound as far-fetched as it may have. These aren’t really flashy players, nor expensive ones, but they’re getting the job done quite nicely.

One of those players is Cicero Santos, who first charmed me with his name, then his ridiculous quotes, then his playing. I’d forgotten that he was actually a loan, but he’s impressed enough that Hertha is taking up the option to buy him. It was a two-year loan that we had from Fluminese, but he’s settled in so well that we want to make sure we keep him. Especially since we don’t want any other European club nicking him.

So where are we now? The financial situation is pretty good. The team is pretty good. We’re proving we can win without Marko Pantelic- twice now, which means that we can do it if he leaves, but also that he sees he’s not the entire team any more and can’t demand the moon. It’s a cheerful time to be a Hertha fan.

Whee!

Oh, and goals. Here are some goals. Cicero’s and Domovchiyski’s first: