Football: “Severe setback” against Hertha BSC: need to speak in Rostock

Kristian Walter has a lot of work to do this week. Above all, the sporting director of Hansa Rostock has to talk a lot. But first he had to recover himself. The trip to Berlin had visibly taken a toll on him. He stood in consternation in the catacombs of the Olympic Stadium on Friday evening for an hour and a half after the final whistle and had not yet come close to processing the 4-0 loss at Hertha BSC. His rough classification of what happened: “A bitter defeat.”

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Biggest defeat of the season

The players hardly found any clear words for Hansa’s worst defeat of the season. Dennis Dressel said that he and his team “always felt like they were a step too late.” Coach Mersad Selimbegovic commented briefly but accurately on his team’s performance: “In the first half we were too discouraged, in the second half we were too naive.” Offensively, Hansa couldn’t go beyond harmless approaches towards the opponent’s goal, and the defensive work was worryingly poor. Hertha’s attackers repeatedly found large gaps in Rostock’s five-man chain, mostly on the flanks. The result: two Berlin goals from Palko Dardai and Fabian Reese in the first half. Two counterattacks in the second half led to goals three and four, again from Palko Dardai and Haris Tabakovic.

The good in all the bad: FC Hansa is by no means hopelessly lost in the 2nd Bundesliga despite the defeat in Berlin. The jump to the first non-relegation place was successful after four months in the table cellar the previous week, and now the Rostock team is back in the relegation place, tied on points with Eintracht Braunschweig and Wehen Wiesbaden. Coach Selimbegovic, who was brought in during the winter break, is responsible for the upswing. After teething problems, they managed three wins in four games before the game against Hertha.

Negative experience as a wake-up call

The trigger for this important series of successes was a similarly frightening negative experience as in Berlin. Walter remembers it well in an interview with “nd”: “The defeat against Kaiserslautern was an extremely bitter setback.” At the beginning of March, Hansa lost the home game 3-0 against a direct competitor in the relegation battle. Selimbegovic was allowed to continue after brief discussions. Walter reports on “many conversations” that were held with the team back then, again and again “with individual players and in groups.” This is exactly what needs to be done again now, “giving the team security, conveying faith, negative experiences in the processing of the game “classify and also put things into perspective,” the sports director gives an insight into his upcoming working week.

The experiences from March make it easier now. And they can convey credible strength in difficult times at FC Hansa. Walter, who came to Rostock in the summer, refers to the nerve-racking and successful relegation battle in the previous season. What helped back then should also become a success factor this time: the great strength of a traditional club. The sporting director is very familiar with this; before his time on the Baltic Sea coast, he worked in various positions at Dynamo Dresden for eleven years. “Traditional clubs thrive on emotions; it’s easier to convey to each other belief in your own strength,” says Walter. What he means by that could be experienced in the Olympic Stadium: around 25,000 Rostock fans accompanied their team to Berlin. Aside from some unnecessary rockets and firecrackers, this support was impressive.

Hoping for home strength

Mersad Selimbegovic had “never experienced anything like that before,” he later said: “That must give us courage.” Midfielder Dennis Dressel quickly found it again after the final whistle and the minutes of cheering from the fan block. “Magdeburg doesn’t come to the Ostseestadion with great joy,” he said, looking at the upcoming opponents and Rostock’s home strength. “We feel extremely comfortable at home,” he said, and expect a “big game.” And the fear of relegation? “We’re not even concerned with that,” explained Walter. He now has to convince the team of this.

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