Teams | September 10, 2017 at 08:53 PM

Share of the spoils against Bremen

Mathew Leckie grabbed his third goal in three Bundesliga games for Hertha, but saw his first half-strike cancelled out Thomas Delaney as the Blue-Whites and the Green-Whites drew 1-1 in Berlin on Sunday.

Berlin- Second home game of the season, first draw. A hard-fought contest from start to finish was unable to be settled and the points were shared. Mathew Leckie scored the 100th goal of the Pal Dardai era, Salomon Kalou played his 100th competitive game in Blue-White and a Bundesliga game was refereed by a woman for the first time as Bibiana Steinhaus took charge of the proceedings in the Olympiastadion.

Berlin- Second home game of the season, first draw. A hard-fought contest from start to finish was unable to be settled and the points were shared. Mathew Leckie scored the 100th goal of the Pal Dardai era, Salomon Kalou played his 100th competitive game in Blue-White and a Bundesliga game was refereed by a woman for the first time as Bibiana Steinhaus took charge of the proceedings in the Olympiastadion.

Pal Dardai made one change from the Dortmund game, with Salomon Kalou making way for Alex Esswein on the left. Niklas Stark and Per Skjelbred took charge of the midfield, while Vladimir Darida pushed further forward.

The game kicked into life quickly, and bothe Jarstein and Jiri Pavlenka were called upon in the early stages to make fine saves – Rune from Florian Kainz and Pavlenka from Niklas Stark’s header. Hertha controlled proceedings from there and were rewarded for their efforts when Mathew Leckie drilled home the opener after Steinhaus had played advantage from a foul on the edge of the area.

Hertha came out firing in the second period too, with Seb Langkamp and Ibisevic both testing Pavlenka, before Bremen equalized just before the hour after Thomas Delaney’s neat turn and shot beat Jarstein and nestled in the bottom corner. Moments later the Norweigen had to be alert again to deny Finn Bartels one-on-one. Esswein and Darida made way for Kalou and Valentin Stocker in the closing stages, and the latter almost produced a wonder goal on the volley from the edge of the box direct from a corner, before Ibisevic saw a late header held by Pavlenka.

Hertha move up to eighth in the table with draw, with one win, one draw and one defeat from the opening three games. Thursday will see Pal Dardai’s boys return to the Europa League at home to Bilbao, before an away game in Sinsheim against Hoffenheim next Sunday.

by Hertha BSC