Tayfun Korkut, 47, had various famous coaches as a professional. For example: the later world champions Vicente del Bosque (Spain/2010), Joachim Löw (Germany/2014) and Carlos Alberto Parreira (Brazil/1994), who were all masters of objectivity, like Korkut itself. On Tuesday, however, the coach of the Bundesliga club Hertha BSC, threatened with relegation, hit tones that were more reminiscent of Giovanni Trapattoni’s angry speech from 1998. Because they were bilingual, in this case: English and German. And because the players from the bottom of the second half of the season “played weakly like a bottle was empty”, as Trapattoni once rumbled.
“You’re in shit up to here!” Korkut called out to his players on Tuesday at the start of training – and pointed to his hips. Then he raised his hand to chest height: “I’m in shit up to here!” Only, Korkut fumed, it’s not about him or his future, it’s about the team finally getting their act together: “Fuck me!!!” And because he doesn’t train a youth team, but full professionals, he doesn’t want to hear any whining about a “shitty place” or a “shitty sun” that dazzles. But just win the duel between two relegation candidates next Saturday at Borussia Mönchengladbach, “fucking hell”!
The problem facing Korkut can be illustrated with a quip from another of his teachers: John Benjamin Toshack once said that on Mondays after defeats he always “wants to change ten players, eight on Tuesday, four on Thursday and four on Saturday I have to play with the same assholes as always.” With the difference that the Liverpool legend Toshack was employed by Real Madrid at the time and not – like Korkut now – by Hertha BSC.
The crisis there is now so extensive that it would be a case for the “360 Grad Verlag”. It actually exists, but it doesn’t specialize in football books. Herthas Panorama in excerpts: The team did not achieve a win in 2022; the entourage throws themselves into malice and sarcasm (“Oh, how beautiful that is”, the fans sang at the 1: 4 against Frankfurt); Korkut is in the… well, see above; President Werner Gegenbauer is invisible; Investor Lars Windhorst bites his back because he thought he was pumping 374 million euros into a football club and not into the sewage system; Winter departures like Jordan Torunarigha (Gent) and Krzysztof Piatek (Fiorentina) trump in Belgium and Italy respectively, while Hertha concede too many goals and score too few – and then sports director Arne Friedrich, 42, throws down with immediate effect.
That would be a process per se that became a political issue, because even Hertha’s press release shimmered through how conflictual the climate is. “For various reasons, I have had the feeling over the past few months that my influence on important sporting decisions is no longer sufficient to do justice to my duties as sports director,” Friedrich was quoted as saying. The result: departure, nine games before the end, although the farewell to the end of the season had long been announced.
Must explain a lot: Fredi Bobic on the Hertha training ground.
(Photo: Imago/M. Popow/Imago/Metodi Popow)
When manager Fredi Bobic was asked on Tuesday whether there had been differences with Friedrich about the question of coaching, he was indignant: “I knew that this question would come up because it’s also the most superficial and simplest.” Then Bobic explained that Friedrich had suffered from Lame Duck Syndrome. In fact, he was no longer involved in all decisions; it has become difficult for Friedrich to be considered an influential player “also in the perception of the players”. Nevertheless, according to Bobic, he regrets Friedrich’s departure.
The players also “recognized”, said Bobic, “that they are the problem”, not the coach
Like Korkut, Bobic held the team accountable. On Sunday he did it internally, at a session without Korkut. “It has to be a team, as soon as possible. We’re not that right now, and they recognized that,” he said: the players. According to Bobic, they also “recognized that they are the problem”, not the coach. On the other hand, the previous approach of Korkut, football play wanting, largely thrown overboard.
the image learned that they had agreed to be “disgusting and unpleasant” to the opponent in the future. In addition, they wanted to “run and fight, hitting long, high balls from back to front”, which sounded like a return to football from Korkut predecessor Pal Dardai, who was deposed in November. Hertha had to be “even more compact” and “do the simple things right,” said Bobic, who recently failed. Especially in the 1: 4 against Frankfurt, when he was “shocked” by the performance of the workforce. Will it be strengthened further?
Foreign professionals in the Russian league are allowed to terminate their contracts for the time being and change immediately. Last season’s Hertha goalgetter Jhon Córdoba, who has been with FK Krasnodar since the summer, would be a candidate if he weren’t injured by the end of the season. Bobic reported that his cell phone rang violently after the opening of the transfer window by the world association Fifa, and that all options were being studied. But: It has to fit economically. Which leads to the Windhorst millions.
Most recently, Bobic said at Sport 1 that the money was basically “gone”. On Tuesday, he left open whether what he found in Berlin corresponded to what had been promised to him – above all by President Gegenbauer. “It’s not about me right now, these are issues that we can discuss at some point.” He himself will neither go out nor talk about third parties. “I speak internally. And then when I speak, I speak very hard,” said Bobic.
