Without the key player in the key game: How strong is Hertha’s offensive without top scorer Dodi Lukebakio? The start of the league on Saturday at VfL Bochum will provide the answer.
Missing Hertha BSC at the Bundesliga restart in Bochum: Dodi Lukebakio.
IMAGO/Jan Huebner
He was “in a way a new Dodi,” said Dodi Lukebakio in a kicker interview at the beginning of November. And one thing could be said with confidence after the first months of the season: This new Lukebakio – more focused, more consistent, also more capable of suffering than its sometimes ingenious, sometimes invisible predecessor – is doing Hertha quite well. The Belgian was high on the sales list in Berlin in the summer after returning from the loan year in Wolfsburg – and also stayed because the chemistry between him and new coach Sandro Schwarz was right from day one. In the season so far, the attacker, as the undisputed regular player, had great responsibility in Hertha’s offensive, seven goals and two assists ennoble his record. At the end of the year against Cologne (2-0), the 25-year-old received his fifth yellow card, so he will miss Saturday in Bochum. Hertha, with 19 goals in 15 games so far not an attacking machine, has to manage without Lukebakio for the first time this season. “Of course Dodi is missing,” says sporting director Fredi Bobic, “but others have to catch up. Sometimes one is missing, sometimes the other. Then others have to step in.”
New momentum on the offensive
What encourages Bobic and Schwarz: In preparation, Hertha’s offensive seemed collectively more purposeful and powerful than in the first months of the season. The return of the previously injured Stevan Jovetic and Jessic Ngankam expands the possibilities, summer signing Wilfried Kanga seemed better integrated into the game in preparation and almost freed at the end. In the days of Bradenton/Florida, where Hertha got the finishing touches for the remaining 19 league games in the training camp, Bobic liked “how the boys grow together on the offensive, how they made steps”. His insight: “The lads are in a completely different way than they were in the summer. You could also see in training that some things worked much better on the offensive than they did half a year ago. We hope that we can see something of the same in Bochum. ”
Scherhant waves starting eleven debut in Bochum
Even though left winger Chidera Ejuke (ligament injury in the knee) and new signing Florian Niederlechner (muscle hardening in the thigh) are missing from the start alongside Lukebakio, Hertha believes they are strong enough – even in the game ahead. Marco Richter should start on the right wing for Lukebakio, who Schwarz usually called up as a right winger. On the left wing, the coach can choose between Derry Scherhant, Maximilian Mittelstädt and Myziane Maolida. Since he supposedly needs Mittelstädt, who had extended his contract until 2027 on Wednesday, for captain Marvin Plattenhardt, who was not completely fit after an infection, on the left in the four-man defense and Maolida has not been on track in his one and a half years in Berlin, youngster Scherhant beckons the starting eleven -Ticket. The instinctive footballer, who didn’t have the classic NLZ career, combines intuition, courage, speed, finishing qualities and a good one-on-one. After two joker appearances against Frankfurt (1: 1) and in Bremen (0: 1) it would be the starting XI premiere in the Bundesliga for the 20-year-old. Already at the beginning of the training week, Schwarz said about the necessary improvisation on the wings: “We haven’t made a final decision yet, but we already have a rough idea.” Richter on the right, Scherhant on the left and Kanga in the center of the attack, who scored against Cologne and was convincing in the training camp, as a target player: This is how the Berliners want to win in Bochum – and show that, at least this time, they can do without Lukebakio.
