Hertha beats Stuttgart 2:1: motivation from the sole – sport

Hope is one of those things that cannot be bought. She is abstract. In the case of Hertha BSC, this is a good thing in that, from a technical point of view, it is a case of restructuring. If there were a shop that offered hope for sale, Hertha would have to walk past it with their hands in their empty trouser pockets. But behold: Hertha BSC has had a little more hope since Saturday. Not much. But definitely more than before the game against VfB Stuttgart. Goals from Marc-Oliver Kempf and Florian Niederlechner brought the Berlin club to a 2-1 victory, which did not free them from the burden of finishing at the bottom of the Bundesliga table. But still: The distance to non-relegation place 15 is only five, no longer six points. And the relegation place 16, which opponent Stuttgart occupies, is only three points away with three remaining games.

Hertha BSC drew their motivation from the supposed hopelessness of their own situation. At least that’s what goalscorer Niederlechner said. “We have nothing left to lose anyway…”, Hertha’s Hungarian coach Pal Dardai said to the team before the game, and from this developed two central instructions that sound simple: “Don’t shit your pants. Play football”, were Dardai’s words. They seemed to work. The team didn’t care about the perceived pressure and followed the instructions as best they could. Hertha’s football showed only rudimentary similarities to the model of the Hungarian miracle team of the 1950s, whose hero Ferenc Puska’s coach Dardai had reminded of during the week. But the number of Hertha fans who are currently inclined to turn up their noses at the quality of the performances in the Olympic Stadium is almost zero. Dardai was satisfied: “You can stay in the league that way,” he said.

Stuttgart ball possession does not drive away the melancholy

The coach had changed the team four positions compared to last week’s game at Bayern. The most important changes: He brought Stevan Jovetic back into the team (“the best footballer in the squad”) and put him in the tenth position. Marton Dardai played alongside Lucas Tousart on the double six.

At the beginning of the game, the Stuttgart team apparently tried to lure Hertha through risk avoidance and patience. Possession of the ball for as long as possible was intended to combat the melancholy left by the semi-finals in the DFB Cup against Eintracht Frankfurt (2:3).

At first it even seemed like the plan might work. VfB had their first chance of the game through Serhou Guirassy: Hertha’s goalkeeper saved his shot (7′). After that, however, the Berliners bit into the game. They also gave no indication that even after Tousart’s and Dodi Lukebakio’s first shots, it took a lot of imagination to see those advances as a harbinger of the opening goal. But Marc-Oliver Kempf scored it, with a head and in an impressive way. After a nice cross from Marco Richter from the right, Kempf shot up powerfully seven meters in front of the Stuttgart goal and heaved the ball into the net with conviction (29′).

However: Eight minutes later, Kempf could not be seen in the other penalty area when Borna Sosa sent a cross from the left to the completely unmarked Josha Vagnoman, who in turn put it on Guirassy in the six-yard box. The striker pushed the ball into the empty goal (38th). “Then you have to go into the break 1-1,” said VfB coach Sebastian Hoeneß after the game in a matter-of-fact tone, although he had cause for great anger. Because this requirement was not met: In the second minute of added time, Hertha took the lead again. After a free-kick cross from Lukebakio, Florian Niederlechner pressed the ball towards the goal with his sole – the ball flew through the legs of the puzzled VfB goalkeeper Fabian Bredlow and into the net: 2:1.

“This is a result that hurts, but will not knock us down,” said Hoeneß

During the break, Stuttgart coach Sebastian Hoeneß replaced the striker Tiago Tomás, who was ineffective in the first half, and replaced Silas, who wore gloves as a rational being. So much for May – temperatures in the Olympic Stadium were like in late autumn. Shortly thereafter, Chris Führich came for Genki Haraguchi. If the aim was to remedy the Stuttgart game’s greatest shortcoming, the lack of rhythm changes, it failed. Hertha BSC focused on defending their lead with depth and concentration, and because of that, it didn’t really matter that the bottom of the table struggled to string three passes forward in the game.

Dardai was later annoyed that he could remember ten switching situations in which his team had not played out the possible counterattacks. Hoeneß, on the other hand, said that his team had “invested a lot and didn’t allow anything anymore”, which is also important in games like this, but that they lacked the clout. In fact, it was only in the closing stages that VfB came back to dangerous shots from distance shots by Vagnoman and Wataru Endo, who missed their target. It remained a 2-1 win for Hertha.

“This is a result that hurts, but will not knock us down,” said Hoeneß. For Hertha, on the other hand, the victory meant points – as well as time in which hope can grow. Dardai wanted to celebrate this. After the end of the game he allowed himself a beer, he wanted to continue partying in his home villa. In the evening he wanted to “treat to wine and cigars first,” said the Hungarian.

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