Sandro Schwarz – his arms crossed in front of his chest, a grim look on his face – stood next to the gate and called Henrik Kuchno over to him. For the Hertha BSC players, at least for those in the red jerseys, that was not a good sign.
On the penultimate day of training at the training camp in Florida, Sandro Schwarz let two teams play for three small goals each. It should be about intense pressing. But what the head coach of the Berlin Bundesliga team saw had little to do with intensive pressing.
Team Blue scored goal after goal, Team Red just let it happen. Until Hertha’s coach had enough. Although the wind roared powerfully across the square, his words were easy to understand even from afar. “That’s not enough what Red is offering!” he shouted and threatened the team with a penalty run at the end of the session.
The game went on, the Blues continued to score as they wished. At some point, Schwarz called athletic trainer Kuchno over to him.
With us, nobody is deeply relaxed.
Sandro Schwarz, coach of Hertha BSC
In hindsight, Black wasn’t all that unhappy that his players had given him a reason to be a little louder for once. That sharpens the senses. “The team reacted well to that in the afternoon training session,” said Hertha’s coach.
Schwarz had little to complain about during the eleven days in Florida anyway. “We did what we set out to do,” he said. “With a lot of diligence.”
It was about intensity. It was about developing the necessary physique for the remaining 19 games of the season. And it was all about improving the offensive game. “We know that we’ve made progress, but we also know that we still have to get the competitive edge for the game against VfL Bochum.”
The game starts against VfL Bochum
After returning to Berlin this Sunday, Schwarz and his team have just under a week to prepare for the first competitive game of the new year. Hertha, who is fifteenth in the table, will play against Bochum, who is in seventeenth, next Saturday. A point separates the two clubs. If the Berliners win, they distance themselves a little from the relegation zone; if they lose, VfL pulls past Hertha.
“We are aware of the table region we are in,” says Schwarz. “Nobody is deeply relaxed with us. But it’s also part of not running around remotely and thinking: Oh God, what’s happening here? Being confident is important.”
They see Hertha’s self-confidence strengthened by the stay in Florida: The weather was good, the conditions were good – and so were the results in the friendlies. There were three clear victories against the three lower-class opponents. They only managed to draw 2-2 against Millonarios FC, 15-time Colombian champions, but that after being 2-0 down at times.
“At the beginning of the training camp, we discussed the fact that it’s all about winning,” said Schwarz. This is exactly what Hertha lacked in the first part of the season. The yield in points was often in stark disproportion to the performances shown. “You have to deliver, you have to score,” said Fredi Bobic, Hertha’s sports manager, with a view to the rest of the season. “The boys should simply reward themselves.”
Reacting to the deficit in the game against the Millonarios showed Bobic that the team can stand up to adversity. Nevertheless, there is still one or the other to improve. “We still need to be a little clearer when it comes to being a real goal threat,” he said.
It was positive that Hertha was largely spared injuries in Florida. Only winger Chidera Ejuke had to leave early after damaging ligaments in his knee in the first friendly. With a prognosis for the downtime, Bobic held back, but with such an injury, “it can’t go that fast sometimes”.
We don’t have a budget.
Sports director Fredi Bobic on possible signings
Therefore, there will probably still be a bit of speculation as to whether Hertha should not sign an offensive player after all. Florian Niederlechner and Fabian Reese, who are coming in the summer anyway and then free of charge, are still being traded as possible winter additions.
“We don’t have a budget,” Bobic said. Stefan Reuter, the manager of Niederlechner’s club FC Augsburg, knows: “If he wants to hand it over earlier, he can hand it over. But he can’t expect us to spend money on it.”
Hertha has to save, which is also why Hertha’s transfer activity this winter has consisted of selling players – and not signing them. “We have set ourselves some goals. Now we’re completely through,” announced the managing director of the Berliner.
Six players have left the club, including two on loan. “Economically, we’ve done our homework without losing an awful lot of substance,” said Bobic. “Now we have a compact squad that looks healthy in terms of the number of players.”
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