Second Bundesliga – This is how Hertha’s season will go (maybe)
Image: imago images/O.Behrendt
“Anyone who guesses correctly has no idea about football,” Franz Beckenbauer once said. On the other hand, Hertha BSC’s season will never be as good as the prediction. By Ilja Behnisch
What was heard on Saturday minutes before kick-off does not bode well: “The team is in the middle of development”, “We are in a process”, “Of course we still lack automatisms”, “hard preparation”, “the boys have pulled together well”, “lots of new content”, “give it everything”, “give it everything” and three times “Berlin way”. There are eleven football clichés in just one minute. Hertha’s new coach, Cristian Ramon Fiél Casanova, at the second division opener against SC Paderborn (3 August, 1pm, live in Audio stream on rbb|24) for the best. New second division record!
And it continues like this. Despite the failures of Fabian Reese and Kevin Sessa, the team not only confidently won their first home game, but also their first away game against Hamburger SV a week later.
Reese revenge against Cottbus
With a broad chest, we then head to the DFB Cup at Hansa Rostock. In sporting terms, the duel against the third division team is no challenge for the Berliners. The seven-hour interruption of play due to a historical rivalry after several cogs were thrown is enough to give food for thought.
There was also brief unrest the following week when it was announced that Peter Pekarik was turned away at the entrance to a Berlin discotheque at three in the morning because he had no ID on him. The bouncers simply couldn’t believe that the Slovakian was of legal age, let alone actually 37 years old. The tabloids went wild. Only after the club’s third press release was it fully accepted that Pekarik was no longer under contract with Hertha BSC.
In terms of sport, however, things are going like clockwork. Including the friendly against Karlsruher SC on matchday ten, for which the ultras of both clubs knitted a fan scarf from Berlin to Baden (a new second division record!), the team has won nine of its games. Only the home game against Sportvereinigung Elversberg on September 29th (1:30 p.m., live audio stream on rbb|24) is lost 4-0 due to acute arrogance. In a serious case of headline congestion, 89 media houses then carry the headline “Fiél too little” (new second division record!).
At the end of October, Hertha’s stormy autumn begins to pick up speed. In the second round of the DFB Cup, the capital city team will face Energie Cottbus, who surprisingly won their first round duel against Bundesliga side Werder Bremen 1-0 on penalties. Inspired by the sensational coup, Energie coach Claus-Dieter Wollitz’s team stormed to the top of the third division table. And then there was the issue with Fabian Reese.
Pal Dardai and the Netflix special
Hertha’s winger Reese, known from power formats such as the Icon League or a flea market stall on Boxhagener Platz, was seriously injured in a test match against Cottbus during preseason. Tempers flared afterward, and the accusation of unsportsmanlike conduct was the most subtle addition to the arguments that followed. Hertha won the cup thanks to a Reese goal (of all people!) in the third minute of injury time. Reese’s “celebration” in the direction of the entire Lausitz resulted in 23 red cards on both sides (second division record!).
The club did not find peace after that either. At the general meeting on 17 November (from 11 a.m. in the rbb|24 live ticker) Hertha legend and former coach Pal Dardai actually makes it happen and runs for Hertha president. His application speech is full of goulash anecdotes, animal comparisons and punch lines as sharp as the radio tower, which is why it is subsequently sold to Netflix as a stand-up program. With the proceeds, the new president Dardai, elected by 94 percent of the members present, succeeds in buying back the 78.8 percent of the shares that until recently belonged to the investor 777 Partners belonged.
Worries that President Dardai wants to return coach Dardai to his traditional position have proven to be unfounded. Dardai praises and values Cristian Ramon Fiél Casanova to the fullest. But he can’t do anything when FC Bayern Munich is looking for a successor to the hapless Vincent Kompany during the winter break. At least: With the ten million euros transfer fee that Fiél brings to the undisputed leader of the second division, coach president Dardai can rebuild the team according to his ideas. The former Hertha player Maxi Mittelstädt, signed from VfB Stuttgart for 9.99 million euros, is the missing piece of the puzzle for secure promotion and: second division record!
Broadcast: rbb|24 Inforadio, 02.08.2024, 19:15
