Bundesliga: Dardai for the third time: Hertha’s class struggle and manager frustration

Bundesliga
Dardai for the third time: Hertha’s class struggle and manager frustration

Pal Dardai has already been a coach at Hertha BSC twice. photo

© David Indian song / dpa

Pal Dardai is a club icon at Hertha BSC. The record player is adored by the fans. As a coach, he now completes a special triple. It’s about staying up again.

This relationship feels like an old married couple – they just can’t get away from each other. Four years after the announcement of the first separation, Bundesliga soccer team Hertha BSC and coach Pal Dardai are back together – for the third time. The four-and-a-half-year period from 2015 to 2019 ended ugly after quarrels with the management, as did the ten months of the second term from January to November 2021.

Today (12.00) the Berliners introduce the 47-year-old as the successor to coach Sandro Schwarz. What all three Dardai commitments have in common is the reason why Hertha’s record player joined as head coach: the fight to stay up in the league.

First term February 2015 to summer 2019

On February 5, 2015, the then Hungarian national coach Dardai replaced Hertha coach Jos Luhukay as coach of the then table 17. and celebrated a successful debut a day later with a 2-0 win at FSV Mainz 05. Hertha finished the season in 15th place. The following seasons gave the Berliners a very good first half of the season, which ended in 3rd, 5th, 10th and 8th place. In the second half of the season, however, the performance could not be confirmed. In addition, Dardai came under criticism with a very defensive style of play that was not very attractive. Differences of opinion between the then manager Michael Preetz and Dardai caused the announcement of the separation on April 16, 2019 at the end of the season.

Second term January to November 2021

One day after the release of sports director Preetz and trainer Bruno Labbadia, Dardai will return to the then table 14 on January 25, 2021. back, which is only two points ahead of the relegation place. After a 3-1 defeat at Eintracht Frankfurt, Dardai secured 14th place with nine games in a row without defeat. Hertha was saved one game day before the end of the season, which Dardai celebrated with a big cigar in a TV interview.

The cigar becomes a symbol. And the relationship with the sports director Fredi Bobic, who was newly installed at the Berliners in summer 2021, was clouded from the start. A 6-0 defeat at RB Leipzig and a 2-0 in the local derby at Union are reason enough for Bobic to replace Dardai with Tayfun Korkut on November 29, 2021, although there is no acute danger of relegation. A year and a half later, Bobic is history at Hertha. For Dardai, however, a new chapter begins on Monday in his heart club – in 18th and last place in the table.

dpa

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