The derby also took place at the fence in front of the Hertha BSC training ground. In the run-up, fans had hung up posters of support. A new poster hung after the 2:3 defeat in the round of 16 of the DFB Cup against 1. FC Union. Inscription: “Shame”. On Friday the fence was empty again. The derby is at least history there.
Otherwise, this game will keep Hertha BSC busy for a while. “The disappointment is great for everyone. With our fans, with the club, with the players,” said coach Tayfun Korkut on Friday.
The upcoming opponent on Sunday in the Olympic Stadium is FC Bayern Munich (5.30 p.m., live on Dazn). A win would be a big deal. But Korkut emphasizes: “You can’t make up for a derby so easily with the next game. It doesn’t matter which opponent it is.”
The game in the Bundesliga is Hertha’s third game since last Saturday. It could have been some kind of bonus game. If the team had won in Wolfsburg and, above all, had beaten Union. Instead, there was only one lucky point and then the end of the cup. At VfL, Hertha slept through the first 20 minutes, only to miss 30 minutes against Union in perhaps the most important game of the year.
“We can’t just leave it at that and accept it,” says Korkut. The game was “honestly and critically” post-processed. “It was spoken very clearly and distinctly,” says sports director Arne Friedrich. In a similar way, Korkut’s predecessor Pal Dardai reported this after games in which the team showed weaknesses that were difficult to explain. And Korkut himself already formulated in this direction, for example after the defeat at the start of the second half of the season against 1. FC Köln.
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The mood among Berliners is tense – again. And at the end of the English week, the next defeat is anything but unlikely. After that there will be an international break, in which the member associations of the European Football Union Uefa will not play any games. This means fewer shutdowns and time to recover. All of that would be much more pleasant for Hertha with a sense of achievement against Bayern.
Hertha BSC’s last point win against Bayern was in 2019
However, the statistics do not speak for the Berliners either: they last scored against Bayern in the summer of 2019 (2-2). Four defeats followed, the game in Munich this season ended 0:5. Striker Robert Lewandowski has 23 goals this season, two more than Hertha has scored in total.
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“Attention and alertness errors” (Korkut) like the last one would almost certainly lead to a number of goals being conceded again. “It’s about us reaching our performance limits and everyone challenging themselves,” says the coach.
After all, the team has sometimes surprised in a positive way in games in which expectations were manageable: Against Bayer Leverkusen there were seconds to win, against Borussia Dortmund they managed a 3-2 coup. Even if it hasn’t seemed like it since then due to the setbacks: That was only five weeks ago.
“Bayern are a top team. But it is a challenge,” says Korkut. And: “I managed to beat them.” With VfB Stuttgart, on the last day of the 2017/18 season. VfB won 4-1 away from home – however, the Munich team had long been the German champions by then.
