Felix Magath and Scottish sidekick ‘jolt’ Hertha Berlin into life | Andy Brassell

Mark Fotheringham steered Hertha Berlin out of the bottom two with the club’s Covid-hit manager confined to a hotel room

It felt as if the appointment of Felix Magath was peak Hertha. We should have known better. On the eve of the first game of the new era, at home to Champions League-chasing Hoffenheim, the new coach tested positive for Covid, and was confined to his Berlin hotel room. When it became known that Magath would be unable to take to the touchline for his projected debut with illness, it felt utterly typical of Hertha’s wretched season to date. “I thought he was joking,” said sporting director Fredi Bobic of the moment when he took Magath’s call to receive the news.

Those waiting for a must-watch Hertha – for better or for worse – might have felt deflated, but they need not have worried. Enter Mark Fotheringham, the 38-year-old Scot who played at Celtic, Norwich, briefly under Magath at Fulham and, more importantly, a German speaker with experience as assistant to former Magath foil Tomas Oral at Karlsruhe and Ingolstadt.