We’re Not Dead Yet

By: Abby | April 20th, 2009

Just when it seemed like the dreams were dead – 70 minutes into what looked like our fourth loss in a row – they showed a flicker of life. After the full 90, they think they’ll go for a walk.

The first half was one of those games where it looked like proof that our luck had deserted us. Despite having the slightly better chances of a slow start, with Cicero hitting a header against the post and restored to the starting lineup Gojko Kacar missing a decent chance, it was Werder who took the lead. A corner came in, it got all bounced around the area, and Per Mertesacker managed to get some part of his 6′7″ body to the ball to put it past the line. It was one of those moments when I could just sense a goal coming- I could tell it would be bad just as soon as Drobny got into a funk about the corner being given (he thought he’d caught the ball before it crossed the line).

Werder had chances to make it more in the second half, but instead, we decided to do something about it. And while the story up to now had been about the return of Marko Pantelic to the starting lineup, he was withdrawn after an hour, when we were still behind. Lulu made his subs fairly early, all around the hour mark, yanking off Maximillian Nicu for Lukasz Piszczek, young Bulgarian Valeri Domovchiyski replaced Pantelic, and importantly for the end, replacing defender Marc Stein with striker Amine Chermiti. The subs certainly did something, jarring the side into action, and soon we were level.

It took a towering defender of our own to pay them back- the hulking Josip Simunic. (Per Mertesacker is a lot of things, and I like him a lot as a player, but you can hardly describe him as hulking, can you?) Raffael, who had a fine game in my opinion, got the ball out to Pal Dardai, who lifted in an excellent cross right onto Joe’s head. His looping header beat Tim Wiese to the inside corner and we were celebrating an equalizer from this unlikely source. And that wasn’t all- just when we were settling for a draw, up popped little Amine Chermiti (he’d hit the post earlier, actually), who stole the ball from Naldo, passed the ball to Raffael, who fired in a fantastic goal from 20 meters out. That was the 87th minute, and the score held. 2-1, our losing streak snapped, and the dream of the Champions League back on.

Chermiti deserves a lot of credit for our revival, and Lulu noticed, calling him “the future of Hertha” and hinting that he could start Friday against Hoffenheim. The kid came in with a lot of hype, but an injury cut into his settling-in time, and once he recovered he still had to adjust to the Bundesliga, and to Hertha. But with Marko Pantelic failing to give Lulu a good reason to force him back into the starting lineup, and Voronin injured, it may be time for him (and the equally-young, although less-discussed, Domovchiyski) to show what he’s got.

So things are good again. In fact, things are so good that we might even have Arne Friedrich back by Hamburg. I think it’s still a bit of a long shot to have him back so soon, but it’d be great to have him play again before the season concludes. I don’t need to tell you how important he is to us.

More good news: despite the string of losses, the Olympiastadion was packed. Sure, Bremen has big names that people like to see, but everyone knows it’s still nice.

Category: Team News, match reports

Tags: match reports, Team News

« On And On And On | Home | The Fashion Pack »

The Offside RSS Feeds

We’re Not Dead Yet

Comments