Football – Hertha BSC begins to dream

Seven wins from the last ten games. Recently three successes in a row – including a dominant first half in the DFB Cup in a 2-1 win against Europa Conference League participants Heidenheim. The second division players from Hertha BSC are currently riding a blue and white wave of success. »It feels good. “We have a lot of self-confidence right now,” said a happy striker Florian Niederlechner after the cup triumph against Heidenheim. Last weekend, the Old Lady had already achieved an important victory in an away win against the previously unbeaten Karlsruher SC. In the second league they are only three points behind leaders Düsseldorf. Against Heidenheim, Hertha immediately set the next exclamation mark on Wednesday, especially in the first 45 minutes.

»I think that was the best half of the whole season. We didn’t give the opponent a chance and actually had to score two or three goals,” said veteran Niederlechner, analyzing the duel with the Bundesliga club in which Hertha took the lead in the 16th minute through Derry Scherhant. Until the break, the Berliners had 58 percent possession of the ball with a pass rate of 91 percent and 6:1 shots on goal. Great values, the truth of which is that Heidenheim’s coach Frank Schmidt spared some top performers.

Because Hertha survived the Bundesliga team’s pressure phase after the restart and several substitutions without conceding a goal and remained dangerous even on the counterattack, the cup success can be seen as a positive maturation process for the young Berlin team. And the decisive 2-0 in the 74th minute thanks to the fourth goal in the fifth game by Michaël Cuisance gives hope that the last-minute transfer of striker Haris Tabaković can be intercepted better than initially feared.

The offensive focus of Hertha coach Christian Fiél, who inherited club legend Pál Dárdai in the summer, also helps. »We still had to get used to it a bit. It was a completely new game system and a new coach. But now we’re doing great,” praised Ibrahim Maza after the win against Heidenheim. The 18-year-old, who had to be substituted in Karlsruhe due to an injury, was back in the starting line-up on Wednesday and was brimming with joy along with his midfield colleagues Cuisance, Scherhant and ex-Heidenheimer Kevin Sessa: “Playing with them is just great . That you know that you have people next to you who always want the ball.

The youthful carefreeness of the Hertha team would have fallen on their feet in the last minutes of the second round of the cup. Despite their 2-0 lead, the Berliners were still surprisingly open on defense shortly before the end. Heidenheim striker Stefan Schimmer took advantage of this to score in the 86th minute, before the referee team had to come to the Berliners’ aid in stoppage time. Only because linesman Martin Wilke saw a supposed push from Schimmer on Hertha’s central defender Márton Dárdai in the 95th minute shortly before Paul Wanner’s header to make it 2-2, the equalizer was disallowed.

After the game, Heidenheim coach Schmidt did not agree with the decision at all – especially because the game continued for ten seconds after the shimmering foul on the edge of the penalty area. It was only after Wanner’s goal that assistant Wilke informed his referee Robert Kampka about the offense. At the press conference afterwards, Schmidt was still visibly frustrated: “Actually, none of us are allowed to sit in here now, we should be in the stadium for the second half of extra time, maybe there’s already a penalty shootout.”

Because, as is well known, this no longer happened, Hertha can continue to work on its own series of successes. The next opponent is 1. FC Köln. The Domstadt team also knocked Holstein Kiel, a Bundesliga team, out of the cup on Tuesday. So Christian Fiél and his team should be warned. For Florian Niederlechner, only three points count: »The week is not yet perfect. It won’t be perfect until we beat Cologne on Saturday.” Confident tones in the second division’s promotion race. And then there is the almost 40-year-old dream of the first cup final in our own stadium.

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