One the day of the Champions league final in Lisbon a tweet coming out from Berlin prompted me to give a short nod to Jay Brooks who has been confirmed in the final 23 for the US National team in the World Cup. So he will be heading for Brazil very soon with his father's countrymen, to face the best in the world. Quite an honour for him and good luck to him I say.

It may feel strange for him, playing against Germany when it comes to it after having faced many if them in the Bundesliga. However, perhaps Jay can offer Jurgen Klinsmann some recent insight to a lot of the players in the Gemany national team. After all, his last game was against Dortmund and it's not so long ago Hertha faced Bayern as well. Anyway, I hope he has a good World Cup and comes back to Berlin a stronger, better player.

May 10th saw the skies above Berlin clear a little as over 76,000 fans made their way to the match in the Olympiastadion. The trains were packed with blue, white and yellow. When we arrived the Terracen by the South gates was packed with Dortmund fans - I think I was wearing the only Hertha shirt there!

Ok the match plan fell apart after 40 minutes and I'd rather not think about how it went. Hertha nearly made it to half time before the flood gates opened with two goals in three minutes from Lewandowski and Jolic. This was to be mirrored forty minutes later by another brace, this time by a a free kick from Lewandowski and two minutes later a goal from Mkhitaryan. Previous posts talked about our back line, well, at one point Marco Reus was left totally unmarked at the edge of the box waiting for a cross that luckily didn't happen on that particular occasion. It wasn't zonal and it wasn't man marking but I guess someone attacked the ball before it got to Reus. Not sure it was a Hertha player though. You just can't play like that and expect not to get hammered.

The heaviest defeat I can recall watching in the Olympiastadion but the atmosphere in the build up was great.  I've added a few pictures below to give you a bit of a flavour of the build up.

Sadly I missed the first the first 30 seconds or so of the Hertha Choreo in the video clip below so you will need to fill in the gap at the start with your imagination!

The visiting Dortmund fans put up a good show as well - credit where it's due . . . a little "Yellow Wall" in the capital.

By half way through the match it had clouded over and the temperature dropped. Perhaps the skies over Berlin were watching the match with increasing concern as well.

Still, it rained overnight so those skies had a good cry and by the following day the sun was back out again - HaHoHe Hertha BSC.

(Enough of the weather metaphor!)

On a slightly sad note the "Old Lady" bids farewell to the veteran player Levan Kobiashvili. Kobi has played 436 professional games in the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga.  Over 104 of these games have been for Hertha since he joined from Schalke in the January transfer window in 2010.  The Bild report that he will be in the starting eleven against Dortmund on Saturday so hopefully he'll not end his career on the bench, at least not without a standing ovation. Kobi lost it at the end of the annus horribilis (2011/12) and received a lengthy suspension.  But it is better to remember him for his work for the club rather than one moment of madness when passions were high.  I want to forget that whole season really.

It appears the Hertha squad travelling to Bremen for the game on Saturday includes the following: Kraft, Jarstein, Pekarik, Langkamp, Janker, Hosogai, Ndjeng, Ben-Hatira, Allagui, Ronny, Skjelbred, Niemeyer, Van den Bergh, Brooks, Schulz, Wagner, Mukhtar and Ramos. A Flipagram from Hertha shows them in shirt number order . .

http://instagram.com/p/nfv3nIpmDo/

Instagram pictures from Nico Schulz show Nico with Hajime Hosogai and Adrian Ramos on the train!

http://instagram.com/p/nf-ysUCjgI/

With both sides being safe from the drop but no chance of Europe this game could go anywhere. Both teams are playing for pride only and the players are playing for their pecking order next season. That's not to say that either one, or indeed both of those motivations are not valid and more than sufficient to produce a cracking game on Saturday.

These are interesting times for Hertha and Hertha fans.  The Hinrunde for Hertha was a remarkable success - far better than most fans even dared to dream of back in May 2013.  Although the team had dominated in the 2. Bundesliga and was promoted with a record number of points, nobody expected to continue in the top flight in the same vein.  The 6:1 victory against Eintracht Frankfurin in the first game felt like a dream with Hertha topping the table!  The impressive Hinrunde ended away in Dortmund with another three points for the "Old Lady" bringing her total to 28 points.

Then came the Ruckrunde.  Just thirteen points collected since the winter break with just one game to go is a pale shadow of last years performance.  This phenomenon is perhaps not unheard of for a newly promoted team, to fade as the season goes on but perhaps this is a little extreme!  It is hard to not ask yourself why?  The ability to score appears to have dried up. Chances come and go but the killer finish?  The team, so dependant on the goals (16) and assists (5) from Adrian Ramos, just appears to have run out of steam. 

It will be interesting to see what happens in the autumn after the summer break.  How will Adrian Ramos be replaced?  Will Lasogga return?  If so, will he stay fit?  Is it not dangerous to hang all of your hopes on one new player even if he were to return?  Somehow our attacking midfielders must be brought on to take a larger share of the tally.  On current form this leaves a lot of work for Jos Luhukay and his team over the summer.