Play with heart and courage

The preparations for the opening game of the Rückrunde against Bayern are well underway. Arne Maier is also back doing some running as he recovers from injury.  

Berlin – Hertha are back from sunny Orlando, as they step up their preparations for the opening game of the Rückrunde against Bayern on Sunday (19/1/20, 15:30 CET). After playing the U23s in an intra-squad friendly on Monday, Jürgen Klinsmann’s side trained for the first time this week on the training ground on Wednesday. “We’re really excited for the season to begin again. We’ve worked intensively with the side over the winter break. The training camp went well and we’re ready for every game now,” said assistant coach Alexander Nouri after a 90-minute session on Wednesday morning.

The side from the capital are well aware of how difficult a task it will be against the record German champions in the Olympiastadion. “All we can do is approach every game properly and play to our best,” said Nouri. “We will have to bring our ability to suffer onto the pitch with us, defend compactly and be aggressive. We will need to play with a lot of heart and courage.”

Maier back out training

There are still a few question marks about the team for Sunday’s game. “Every Bundesliga game tells you how far you have come as a side. You can’t replicate that pressure in training, although we have had some good training sessions and friendlies,” said an optimistic Nouri. New signing Santiago Ascacibar has been part of those positive sessions: “He is good at winning back the ball, is aggressive and helps our game when we have possession. We’ve also seen how dangerous he can be in front of goal in training,” remarked Nouri on Hertha’s new number 18.

While the Argentinean midfielder may make his Hertha debut on Sunday, Arne Maier will almost definitely miss out. Nevertheless, the Hertha youth product has already started doing some running with fitness coach Hendrik Vieth after picking up a knee injury in the friendly win against Frankfurt in the US last week. “We’re hopeful that he can rejoin team training very soon,” confirmed Nouri. Salomon Kalou, who didn’t travel to America as he looks to find a new club, also worked with Vieth and Maier. “Salomon needs to do some individual work first.” Marvin Plattenhardt also missed out on training due to a cold.

Hopefully ‘Platte’ will be able to train in the coming days ahead of the Rückrunde opener. “Even though it sounds obvious, our aim is to win the game. We are aware that we’re not safe and we need to push ourselves to our limit to avoid relegation,” stressed Nouri.