Unrewarded for their efforts

At full-time, the Hertha BSC players left the Olympiastadion pitch dejected with their heads dropped. The players had worked hard, fought and invested everything they had for the full 90 minutes. The Hertha could also not fully enjoy the encouraging support of the 53,716 fans who were in attendance in the Olympiastadion, who paid their respects to Pál Dárdai’s side for their performance. At least the home side were able to collect a point from the match. “It feels like a defeat as we dropped two points,” summarised Valentino Lazaro as he gave the overall feeling within the squad after the final whistle.

Hertha had started the match on Sunday afternoon on the front foot as they looked to continue their 100% home record on matchday eight of the Bundesliga season. The side from the capital were able to contain visitors Freiburg in their own half in the opening stages with good positional play and high ball possession. Ondrej Duda rewarded Hertha for their early pressure with his sixth goal of the season in the 7th minute. “I received a lovely pass from Per Skjelbred before being able to get the ball under control on my right foot and firing home,” described the Slovakian. Duda and his teammates went in search of a second goal shortly after taking the lead and Salomon Kalou missed the chance to double the advantage in the 29th minute, firing the ball narrowly over the bar after good individual play.

Hertha coach Dárdai would have wanted his side to have been more determined in this period of the match to find a second goal. “In the first half, we had some good combination play but couldn’t find that crucial final pass as often as necessary. Sometimes we were missing something in the final third,” said Dárdai. Instead of taking a comfortable lead into the break, Hertha suffered a setback on the stroke of half-time as a heavily deflected long distance shot from Robin Koch flew into the back of the net (36’). “We created a couple of chances to double our lead and to turn the match comfortably in our favour. We unfortunately didn’t manage to take the chances and instead conceded an equaliser,” said an annoyed Derrick Luckassen, who featured in the Hertha starting lineup for the first time.

Missing a stroke of luck

The match developed into an open contest in the second half as Hertha dominated with 61% ball possession. “Of course we wanted to win and secure all three points at home,” said Marvin Plattenhardt, who was a constant threat down the left wing. “Of course we can play better especially in the opponent’s penalty box. We were not able to achieve this today but you still saw that we played well attackingly,” said the 26 year old. The home side didn’t benefit from any strokes of luck either, as a Vedad Ibisevic header fell agonisingly wide to the far post in the 61st minute.

The closing minutes of the match were quite hectic with referee Benjamin Cortus at the centre of the controversy. Initially, the referee failed to spot a clear foul on substitute Davie Selke in the 80th minute before overturning a penalty decision against Hertha in the 87th minute of the match. He originally had seen a foul on fellow substitute Palko Dárdai, who had only just come on the pitch. “We felt at the end of the match that we were unlucky with some of decisions today. It is bitter that we didn’t get the decisive bit of luck we needed after the amount of hard work we put in,” says lazaro, who was also critical of his own performance. “The missing final pass in attack is what we need to work on.  We should have taken our shots earlier than we did,” notes the Austrian. Additionally, Dárdai didn’t want to dwell on the referee’s decision after the match. “We have to accept his decision,” said the coach who summarised his feelings after the match and felt the same as all his players. “We felt that we deserved to win the match,” said the Hungarian coach.

Hertha BSC return to action next Saturday (27.10.18) as the side from the capital travel to Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund (15:30 CEST). The Blue-Whites will have to continue to work hard, battle and invest everything they have into the match and they might just be rewarded for this with a good result.