It could have looked like this in the Champions League. The attacker Stevan Jovetic, 32, got ready for a free kick on Friday evening, he took a short run-up, his foot wrapped around the ball. This is usually good news for the ball, because he is happy about the elegant twist , which only fine kickers like Jovetic can give him. And the rest was right too: the speed, the trajectory, the planned arrival in the penalty area.
However, the penalty area was only a calculated intermediate station for the ball, it should not remain there, but was passed on into the VfL Bochum goal by the tall striker Ishak Belfodil in the 23rd minute. And this is how it happened: Belfodil, 30, headed the ball into the far corner, which meant the well-deserved lead for Hertha BSC at the time. A possible, well-deserved home win didn’t materialize in the end because Bochum scored in the second half through Sebastian Polter to make it 1-1, with the only shot on the Berlin goal.
Jovetic and Belfodil once failed at the Italian noble club Inter Milan
Means for Hertha: something between mediocrity and a relegation battle, but certainly not the Champions League – and the storm duo Jovetic and Belfodil are examples of this.
A great future was predicted for both players in the past, but they remain classic yes-but footballers to this day: Yes, they could have a remarkable career, but they would either have to have their glass bones sealed (Jovetic) or work on their reliability (Belfodile). The well-connected Hertha sports director Fredi Bobic was certainly aware of this when he presented the attackers as additions in the summer, because he had certainly obtained detailed information material in Italy and especially from the noble club Inter Milan.
The short version is that they paid a lot of money for Jovetic and Beldofil in Lombardy a few years ago because they firmly believed in the suitability of the strikers in the premier class – and then had to realize soberly that the above reasons outweighed the jubilee in the gazettes quickly turned into malice. Jovetic attracted attention in Milan primarily because of the vanity that only the glorious shirt number 10 claims for themselves; Belfodil was even awarded the unofficial and unflattering ‘Bidone d’oro’ trophy, the golden dustbin that annually awards the worst transfer in the Italian league. After the disappointing stop at Inter, neither of the two could be recommended for the really big tasks.
“We lost the thread,” said Hertha’s Winter access Marc-Oliver Kempf
Hertha sports director Bobic took a well-calculated risk with the commitment of the duo, he hopes that Jovetic and Belfodil will experience their second spring in the autumn of their careers. And the plan could work, as the game against Bochum showed. The storm duo played their part in the fact that Hertha coach Tayfun Korkut saw a “super first half” in which, according to his own list, almost everything was right: energy, offensive presence, game control.
The duo, who have rarely been on the pitch together this season due to various injuries, combined well, created space for their colleagues and, especially in the person of Jovetic, repeatedly appeared with dribbles and shots. The problem, however, was that Hertha “lost the thread” in the second half, as Marc-Oliver Kempf, who was rock-solid winter access that day, put it.
This unwanted change of pace was also indirectly related to the two ex-Inter players, who each seem very willing to call up their performance through great commitment – but whose reserves of strength are obviously not sufficient to fight 90 minutes of relegation battle in the wet and cold Berlin Olympic Stadium. Especially in a game in which the opponent took great pleasure in throwing himself into the sporting struggle for survival. Bochum worked their way back into a game in which, by Hertha standards, attacking football had been really impressive.
“If we play like this, we’ll get the necessary points,” said Hertha coach Korkut. The thing with the prophecies is just such a thing sometimes.