Amid financial worries and unrest behind the scenes, another capitulation on the pitch has left Hertha on the brink“Maybe it was my mistake,” pondered Pal Dardai, the Hertha coach, “that we were too busy working on the offensive side [of the game] during the week. Because defensively, there was nothing at all.”Dardai, a club legend, is too hard on himself. Nobody blames him, parachuted in during the last knockings of this shambolic season as a hopeful punt, as was evidenced by the standing ovation he received from members when taking the stage at Sunday morning’s club AGM. Continue reading...
Sandro Schwarz departed on Sunday after Friday’s grim 5-2 defeat leaves Hertha rock-bottom of the Bundesliga“That,” said Benjamin Weber, “was a real slap in the face.” Hertha’s sporting director has been in situ for less than three months, but he is already acclimatised to the chaos of the capital club. Not surprisingly, perhaps. Before returning to the club in late January he had served the club for almost two decades in a variety of roles. “I’m a Berliner. I’m a Herthaner,” he told his introductory press conference.This, then, will hurt. Hertha have been circling the drain for a while now, retaining their top-flight place via the relegation playoff last season having finished two points clear of the playoff spot the...
Hertha were motivated and applied themselves well against city rivals Union. The problem was the resultIt was always going to be aesthetics, and so it proved. The importance of only the eighth top-flight derby between Hertha and Union was everywhere you looked – not least in the sold-out stands of the Olympiastadion, such a contrast to the relatively paltry turnout for Wednesday night’s humiliating hammering for Hertha at the hands of Wolfsburg. The problem was that, even at such an early stage of this as an elite-level rivalry, we already knew which way this was going, and so it proved. Hertha’s coach Sandro Schwarz had suggested in Thursday’s pre-match press conference that the result didn’t matter as much as the...
Niko Kovac’s heart may be ‘attached to Hertha’ but his surging Wolfsburg team showed them little mercy in a Bundesliga routWolves are built to thrive in bitter winter, so with the champions still struggling to de-ice the windscreen and get the motor running, who better to assume the role of Bayern for now? In a glacial Olympiastadion in Berlin on Tuesday, Wolfsburg flamed their hosts, Hertha, 5-0 to make it two wins, 11 goals scored and none conceded. They remain seventh but only three points off third place and now with a better goal difference, and defensive record, than any team beyond Bayern.They are imperious. It was Die Wölfe’s sixth league win in a row, and they’ve kept clean sheets...
Bayern Munich might win their 11th title in a row, but between now and then we can enjoy another fascinating seasonMeet the new boss, just like the old boss. Though the opening weekend of the Bundesliga had its familiar themes and outcomes, it most definitely had a story to tell. Some will tut or shrug, but they shouldn’t. “You don’t go to the theatre because you’re wondering how the swan from Swan Lake will turn out,” as Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Martin Schneider put it.Let’s start with what the world most expected, or at least feared. Bayern Munich began 2022-23 like a hurricane, not so much pulling back the curtain to the campaign on Friday night at Eintracht Frankfurt as tearing it...