And the Old Lady sits atop the Bundesliga.
Following league leader’s Hoffenheim’s 4-1 loss to 5th place Bayer Leverkusen, all eyes were on the weekend match up between Hertha Berlin and Bayern Munich. A win for either team would secure them the top spot, a place held by Hoffenheim since round 14. Hertha Berlin hoped to continue its fairytale season as it welcomed Bayern to the Olympic Stadium. With seven first team players missing including top goal scorer Marko Pantelic, a win for Lucien Favre’s men against a full strength Bayern Munich was going to be difficult, to say the least. The onus was on Jurgen Klinsmen’s men to re-assert its tag as title favorites.
Two goals from on loan Liverpool striker Andrej Voronin propelled Hertha to a 2-1 win against an ineffective Bayern side, and Hertha now claim top spot in the Bundesliga - a position it hadn’t held since October 2006. In fact, Hertha Berlin has NEVER occupied top spot in the Bundesliga in the second half of the season. Given this remarkable feat, the question on everyone lips is: How exactly did Hertha Berlin rise to the top?
Well, in all honesty, no one really knows how Lucien Favre turned a mid-table team into potential Bundesliga champions. Despite playing at the Olympiastadion (Germany’s second largest stadium), Berlin’s sole top-flight football team runs on a relatively small budget. It receives about €7m-€8m a season from its shirt sponsors (Deutsche Bahn) and had a €9m transfer budget at the beginning of the season. The club has no household names, as its most notable players are team captain and German international Arne Frederich and aforementioned strikers, Serbian Marko Pantelic and Ukrainian Andrej Voronin. While its counter-attacking brand of football isn’t flashy, the team’s defensive compactness is quite admirable, as they have conceded only 23 goals all season.
With 14 rounds left to go in the Bundesliga, Lucien Favre will aim to prove cynics and skeptics wrong by leading Hertha Berlin to its first league title in 77 years. The team’s title credentials will be tested in rounds 24, 29 and 30 as it hosts Bayer Leverkusen and then travels to title challengers Hoffenheim and Hamburg. Should Hertha Berlin secure favorable results against both teams and avoid potential banana skin matches against Werder Bremen and Schalke, a balcony in Berlin might be the setting for a Bundesliga coronation.
(Article published on SnippetSoccer on Feb 17, 2009)
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