Accept it and move on

Hertha BSC were not able to build on their good performance in the cup against Schalke 04. Head coach Pál Dárdai has made criticisms of the team and sees no reason to panic despite the 2-0 defeat.

Pál Dárdai had both hands over his head. Hertha BSC’s man Salmon Kalou had just missed a golden opportunity to put his side 1-0 up in the match against Schalke 04 on Saturday evening. “We had the chance take the lead. Had we done that, the match would have been different,” said Dárdai after the final whistle.

Instead, things turned out differently and the coach had many reasons to feel pretty frustrated during the rest of the match. The home side were also lucky when the post and then a brilliant save from Rune Jarstein kept Leon Goretzka out. However Guido Burgstaller was eventually able to beat the Berlin keeper and break the deadlock three minutes before the break. The goal certainly was not undeserved, taking advantage after BSC lost the ball going forward and the coach acknowledged this. “We didn’t play well and did not have a lot of possession. We just couldn’t relieve ourselves from the pressure and then they punished us,” said the Hungarian, who criticised his team’s positional play. “We were too narrow going forward and too open at the back. It wasn’t our plan just to counterattack and react to the opposition.”

Far too much space

Hertha gave the opposition more of a game after the break, nevertheless, Schalke were the side that looked more dangerous in front of goal. Goretzka as a result doubled the away team’s lead with a shot from distance to make it 2-0 just after the hour mark. Part of it was that we made it too easy for Schalke to play against us and to create chances. Too often we were one, even two metres away from them,” lamented Sebastian Langkamp. “We needed to defend better.” It was not until the second goal that the club from the capital began to show some grit and find gaps behind the Royal Blues’ defence. Vedad Ibisevic and Peter Pekarik were left unmarked and had a brilliant opportunity to reduce the deficit but could not find the target. “The only positive was that we created a good number of chances for an away match,” said Dárdai. “The negatives were extremely clear. We need to accept this loss and move on.”

Keep calm and carry on working

So Hertha BSC’s week in the Ruhr ended as a started, with a defeat. However neither the coach nor any of the players wanted to use the energy-sapping cup game in the week in Dortmund as an excuse. “Obviously we’re frustrated. We had a lot of chances despite the fatigue from playing on Wednesday but we didn’t score and conceded avoidable goals,” said Ibisevic, who still has the full confidence of his coach despite 636 games without a goal. “Everyone goes through periods like this. Veded will score again. We need to continue working on our goalscoring threat as a team,” said Dárdai, who gave his players the chance to recover on Sunday. After another day off on Monday, preparation for the match against Bayern Munich this Saturday will get underway on Tuesday. “Awaiting us are an opponent that will really test us but we need to stay calm and keep working until we can reward ourselves again,” said Dárdai.