BSunday morning will be just as exciting as this evening game at Borussia Mönchengladbach for Hertha BSC supporters. After the 2-0 defeat, manager Fredi Bobic announced that he would meet with President Werner Gegenbauer and Managing Director Ingo Schiller in the near future to discuss whether, after the ninth game in the second half of the season without a win, the time had come for a change of coach.
“We’ll have a quiet talk about how we always do it, including tomorrow morning. And then we’ll see,” said Bobic on Saturday evening. For the first time since the third matchday, the club is in a direct relegation zone, there are many indications that Tayfun Korkut will split on Sunday morning, although the players “fighted and threw everything in”, as Bobic thought. But the overall clearly better team were the Gladbachers, who were also threatened with relegation.
Above all, in the first half, Borussia defended more stably and generated significantly more goal danger. Breel Emblolo hit the post early (9′) after having had an excellent shot earlier (4′). The ball ran well through midfield, Borussia won a remarkable number of offensive duels, Marcus Thuram in particular caught the eye with his determination and commitment.
In the previous week after the defeat in Stuttgart, the Frenchman had been heavily criticized for his lack of energy. In contrast to colleagues like Christoph Kramer or Ramy Bensebaini, he was still in the starting eleven, played one of his best games of the season and made a decisive contribution to Gladbach’s lead.
Berlin central defender Marc-Oliver Kempf brought down Thuram in the penalty area without playing the ball. After a tip from the video assistant from Cologne and a look at the TV images, Florian Badstübner whistled for Borussia, which Alassane Pléa used to make it 1-0 (24th). Thuram could hardly be stopped, but also missed Gladbach’s best chance of the first half from the game when, after a wonderful pass from Pléa, he ran unchallenged towards the Berlin goal and failed when trying to dribble around goalkeeper Marcel Lotka (44.) .
Obviously, Christian Peintinger had adjusted his team well. In the first half in particular, he saw a “very confident performance with a lot of commitment and passion” from his Gladbach team, he said. Adi Hütter’s assistant represented his boss, who tested positive for the corona virus, and usually stood very calmly on the edge of the field, his hands in his pockets.
“That was an important performance, the way we performed today,” said goalkeeper Yann Sommer. However, the Gladbachers had to be annoyed that they were not leading higher long ago, because the balance of power changed in the second half. Suddenly, Hertha played more determined, seemed much more committed, and that awakened old fears among the Gladbach players, which also spread among the 30,675 spectators.
Suddenly the players, who tended to be unsure, became more passive and almost equalized after a corner when goalkeeper Yann Sommer steered a Kempf header over the bar (54′). But this phase, in which the game threatened to tip over, ended after an hour when Matthias Ginter headed a corner from former Berlin player Luca Netz to make it 2-0.
The game was now more balanced and if Jurgen Ekelenkamp’s shot had landed on the underside of the crossbar in the goal (77th), the audience would have seen a highly exciting final phase. But the Berliners are currently being pursued by the bad luck that plagues football teams again and again when success is lacking. “In such a phase you have to have the momentum on your side,” said Bobic.
These words can also be interpreted as an indication of a change of coach, because impulses from a new head coach can, as is well known, steer this mysterious force behind the term “momentum” in a new direction. The Gladbachers, on the other hand, have now collected 30 points after 26 matchdays, so this victory is “a very big step” towards relegation, said defender Nico Elvedi.
The season is complicated and Peintinger recalled after the game how often good games and successes were immediately followed by the next collapse. So the Gladbachers can by no means feel safe, but the starting position in the class struggle is now very good for Borussia.
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