Match day twenty one was a grey old day in Berlin. Nothing new there but if anyone said they knew how that grey day was going to turn out they were lying through their teeth.
Whenever a big team comes to town you will always find their “fans” coming out of the woodwork and this weekend was no exception. The train going to the stadium was crawling with red shirts and scarves which I find (perhaps slightly irrationally) really irritating. I believe it is no coincidence that these part time “fans” support a team that normally wins and many of them will have never been to the Allianz Arena let alone live in Munich. I go to most of the Hertha home games come rain, shine or ice although I missed the Schalke game as I was on holiday in Spain and I’ll miss one other (Eintracht Frankfurt). On that basis alone I think I qualify as being a true Herthaner.
Whenever a big team comes to town you will always find their “fans” coming out of the woodwork and this weekend was no exception. The train going to the stadium was crawling with red shirts and scarves which I find (perhaps slightly irrationally) really irritating. I believe it is no coincidence that these part time “fans” support a team that normally wins and many of them will have never been to the Allianz Arena let alone live in Munich. I go to most of the Hertha home games come rain, shine or ice although I missed the Schalke game as I was on holiday in Spain and I’ll miss one other (Eintracht Frankfurt). On that basis alone I think I qualify as being a true Herthaner.
If you compare the crowds for the game against Ingolstadt and that for Bayern the numbers don’t lie. There were 33,425 supporters in the Olympiastadion for the Ingolstadt game and 77,647 when the league leaders came. As you can see in the two photos below the hard core supporters were there for both games but the rest? You can read there are reasons why fan numbers in Berlin can be problematical in one of my previous posts – Why So Many Empty Seats? Unlike some I will never lose faith with the Olympiastadion as I believe it to be a magnificent venue but I find it frustrating how a bit of poor weather or perhaps the visiting team not being deemed to be top notch and people stay away and watch it in a bar somewhere.
 The Ostkurve - FC Ingolstadt 04 |  Ostkurve - FC Bayern München |
I am not a native Berliner and yet, for good or ill, Hertha is my club. Perhaps not - “Aus Berlin” but certainly “Für Berlin”. Sometimes I wonder about fate and if a club chooses you rather than you choosing it but perhaps that is delving into philosophy and this is not an appropriate space to be discussing that!
On match day itself I emerged from my slumbers with my normal irrationally optimistic outlook on the coming game. After all we have not fared too badly at the hands of Bayern in recent years and once the ninety minutes start anything can happen right? On my more rational side I thought we had just squeaked past Ingolstadt and lost elsewhere away from home so holding our own would feel like quite an achievement!
On match day itself I emerged from my slumbers with my normal irrationally optimistic outlook on the coming game. After all we have not fared too badly at the hands of Bayern in recent years and once the ninety minutes start anything can happen right? On my more rational side I thought we had just squeaked past Ingolstadt and lost elsewhere away from home so holding our own would feel like quite an achievement!
 | The Olympiastadion opened a full two and a half hours before kick-off as I guess the club wanted to cash in of beer and food sales before the game. When I arrived the gates had already been open for half an hour but I still had plenty of time to down my traditional bottle of beer outside the ground before going in and doing a circuit of the stadium. |
At this game I needed to weave through not only the blue and white faithful but also depressing numbers of people wearing red. It came to light later that were 20,000 Bayern supporters at the game. Little did it matter that much of this league leader support may have been “part time”.
The support from the Hertha faithful was magnificent as usual and a rousing “Sha La la la la la la Hertha BSC” before the game – turn up your volume to watch the clip below!
The support from the Hertha faithful was magnificent as usual and a rousing “Sha La la la la la la Hertha BSC” before the game – turn up your volume to watch the clip below!
Once the match got under way it was clear that Bayern were not going to have an afternoon off like they did against Arsenal earlier on in the week. Hertha took the game to the Bavarians and defended solidly as well. Some of the statistics that were put up during the match suggested that Bayern had 70% possession. Frankly, from where I was sitting, this appeared ridiculous to me. Hertha counter attacked well and Salomon Kalou in particular made some magnificent runs down the pitch. One of these was cut short by being felled by Mats Hummels near the half way line (yellow card). Another finished with a cross to Genki Haraguchi who sadly blasted the shot into the stand.
In the twenty first minute Marvin Planttenhardt went down at the edge of the box and, although it wasn’t a foul, was awarded a free kick (hey, it’s happened to us often enough!). The free kick went into the box and our captain poked it in giving Hertha a 1:0 lead. I gather this was his first goal for 600 minutes of football but it was worth the wait, I wasn’t alone in going absolutely bonkers!
Hertha went on defending solidly and even when Lewandowski was brought on with thirty minutes to go Rune Jarstein and the back four were not letting anything through. When it came to full time with Bayern still a goal down and the officials put up five minutes of extra time I couldn’t believe my eyes. Where on earth had they got five minutes? I have never been to a Bundesliga match with anywhere near that amount of extra time even with substitutions. When that five minutes was up Hertha were still 1:0 up but there was still no whistle – not until near the end of the 96th when Lewandowski put in a rebound. For a few minutes the supporters in the ground were in limbo as it wasn’t clear what was going on. The score didn’t go up on the displays straight away and a couple of Bayern Fans turned around and asked “is it 1:1 or what?” To say I felt cheated would be an understatement of epic proportions even though I would have been thrilled about a draw before the match.
The football gods are fickle indeed.
In the twenty first minute Marvin Planttenhardt went down at the edge of the box and, although it wasn’t a foul, was awarded a free kick (hey, it’s happened to us often enough!). The free kick went into the box and our captain poked it in giving Hertha a 1:0 lead. I gather this was his first goal for 600 minutes of football but it was worth the wait, I wasn’t alone in going absolutely bonkers!
Hertha went on defending solidly and even when Lewandowski was brought on with thirty minutes to go Rune Jarstein and the back four were not letting anything through. When it came to full time with Bayern still a goal down and the officials put up five minutes of extra time I couldn’t believe my eyes. Where on earth had they got five minutes? I have never been to a Bundesliga match with anywhere near that amount of extra time even with substitutions. When that five minutes was up Hertha were still 1:0 up but there was still no whistle – not until near the end of the 96th when Lewandowski put in a rebound. For a few minutes the supporters in the ground were in limbo as it wasn’t clear what was going on. The score didn’t go up on the displays straight away and a couple of Bayern Fans turned around and asked “is it 1:1 or what?” To say I felt cheated would be an understatement of epic proportions even though I would have been thrilled about a draw before the match.
The football gods are fickle indeed.
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