Wolfsburg visit the Olympiastadion.

Albeit very early in the Rückrunde , Spieltag 21. finds Wolfsburg coming to Berlin in a battle over a potential European place. The two teams are currently in 6th (Wolfsburg) and 7th place (Hertha) so these three points are clearly vital for both teams when they can be won at the expence of the other team. As always I am looking forward to the game although the Sunday night timing could have been better (for me anyway).

Thursday evening and I'm sitting on an Airbus ready to head out to Berlin. A quick power nap as we take off and for the first 20 minutes I think. I have to keep my energy levels up for the long weekend to come!

On Friday I went up to the new "flagship" Nike store in Berlin as Fabian Lustenberger was going to be there for the opening.  The queues outside were just silly.

There was no way I was going to wait around that long when you can go along to and see Lusti at an open training session almost any time you like at Schenkendorfplatz

Just before walking in . . .

Well, that was disappointing. A 1:2 defeat after such a promising start as well. We suffered, not for the first time, from not putting away early chances and it coming back to bite us in the second half. It was the turn of Sami Allagui to have a bad day in the office on this day. Chance after chance went begging and nothing worked for him. Even the goal from Per Skjelbred was a bit of a scrabble.

The ref. had a good game this week and none of the controversy experienced against Nürnberg came into play this time around. He was a stickler for having both free kicks and throw ins from the correct place. When a player from either side "tried it on", as they usually do, he sorted them out straight away! He let the game flow quite well as well - he played advantage where he could.

No excuses for Hertha there then. The old lady was just nowhere near clinical enough in the final quarter. I tweeted at half time that I hoped the list chances would not come back to bite us but sadly, they did. Yet another conceded to a set piece (corner) and the second goal was a blast from distance and from open play from what I can remember. I reluctantly have to say it was cracking goal. A shame it wasn't scored by Hertha!

Another chance for Ben-Hatira and Hertha in the last minute coming off the bar - it really was not our day.  Perhaps the "Old Lady" has become a little too dependant on  Adrian Ramos during this season.  The results have been great, do not think for one second I fail to appreciate what he has done for us this season but, he has been involved in over 60% of our goals.  Take him out of the equation and we're in deep trouble.  This, together with fixing our apparent inability to defend set pieces must be playing on Jos Luhukay's mind. 

But hey, at least the weather was nice for the game. Here are some more photos from before the match -