"Take a win into the winter break"

2020 is coming to an end. It has been a calendar year like we’ve never experienced one before, with headlines we never thought we’d write, never thought we’d read. Michael Preetz summed it well at the latest press conference, saying it had been "an extraordinary year for all of us, not just at Hertha BSC." The sporting director soon shifted his focus, along with all Hertha fans, to the final game of the year. On Sunday 20th December, Hertha travel to the Black Forest in search of three points from SC Freiburg.

Head coach Bruno Labbadia, who will still be without the injured Santiago Ascacibar, Eduard Löwen and Jhon Córdoba on Matchday 13, is expecting "a completely different game" in Freiburg from the most recent one at home to Mainz 05. "I’m expecting a more open game – both sides will want to take a win into the short winter break and will not want to give anything away easily – we will need a high intensity," he said. One lesson Labbadia says the team can learn from the Mainz game is that they need to play with more purpose. "We didn’t go into the last game with the best plan and we have since analysed a lot of the incidents together. In Freiburg, we need more movement up front and we need to penetrate the opposition more," said Labbadia, giving an example of how his team could be successful on Sunday.