Fussball Musings
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Hertha Podcast
  • Hertha Gallery
  • Visiting the Olympiastadion Berlin
  • Other Media
  • Fußball Terms
  • Contact

Spitzenreiter - for a day

8/22/2015

0 Comments

 
The weather in Berlin over the weekend of Spieltag 2. has been superb.  A pretty steady sunny 27°C and, perhaps most importantly, lovely warm evenings. We were expecting a good crowd at the Olympiastadion to lend support whilst Hertha face visiting Werder Bremen on Friday evening and the Hertha faithful didn't disappoint. 
The warm weather helped bring just over 56,000 out to the stadium to shout, clap and whistle for ninety minutes in support of their team

Fans enjoyed the sunshine outside the ground as the piled off the trains to have a beer or two before going through the turnstiles and, once inside the Ostkurve were in fine voice as usual . . .
Picture
The sun goes down over the Marathontor as the crowd starts to come into the stadium
The game started off pretty well with Hertha controlling the lion's share of the possession and after six minutes the crowd erupted as Stocker drove the ball into the back of the net to put the Old Lady 1:0 up.  As the net bulged my thoughts dashed back to the 6:1 opening game against Eintracht Frankfurt just a few years ago . . . "surely that can't happen again"?

My initial thoughts were correct, it couldn't happen again.  A crazy scrappy equaliser came out of nowhere and for a while it was the men in green who had their tails up and looked like they may score again.  Luckily they didn't but not without the woodwork coming to our rescue on a number of occasions.  Hertha could have won this match but they could easily have lost it as well so perhaps a draw was a fair result in the end.
A couple of players stood out for me in this game if for nothing else than their work rate.  These were Valentin Stocker and Genki Haraguchi.  Both worked like demons driving forwards but also tracking back to spare the Old Ladies blushes.  The same cannot be said for Salomon Kalou who appeared to lack energy in much of the game where he often didn't chase the ball if it didn't fall straight to his feet.  At least the long ball tactic appears to not be being used as often where Kalou is often separated from the ball far too easily by defenders who beat him in the air and on the turf.

I was hoping, just a week ago that Salomon had turned the corner but perhaps I was being overly optimistic.  In the last few minutes Jay Brooks, after he was brought on off the bench appeared to be acting as a front man in the opposition box.  Well if he can score for the USMNT then perhaps he can do a turn for Hertha as well!  Time will tell.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Archives

    March 2022
    February 2021
    November 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012

    Categories

    All
    Chelsea
    Hertha
    Hertha U23
    Olympiastadion
    Other
    Schenckendorffplatz
    Wembley

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly