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Hertha BSC Berlin - Riots, scapegoats and...miracles?
The sight of battered dugout seats strewn across smashed up advertisement hoardings, a host of flares and fireworks being let off in the stands and grown men screening their faces with club scarves before grabbing flagpoles and rampaging across the Olympic Stadium turf on Saturday evening after another home defeat for Hertha Berlin, was not just a microcosm for the trembling tatters the team finds itself in at the bottom of the Bundesliga, it was the latest unsavoury incident in a seemingly ever-increasing violent fan culture in Germany.
At the end of February Nürnberg fans felt the need to light some notoriously hard to extinguish magnesium powder whilst their team played against Vfl Bochum, resulting in nine people becoming injured, two of whom were seriously burnt. Just ten days ago, after second division side Hansa Rostock had suffered a home defeat by bottom-of-the-league Rot Weiss Ahlen, a group of furious fans besieged a VIP area of the ground, and in December, a gang of thuggish Stuttgart 'fans' attacked the team bus and threatened players. Yet it is sure to be the scenes at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin that prompt the authorities into some much-needed action. It is so often the case, it seems, that the associations who run the game are all too keen to rub salt in the wounds of clubs who are in the most dire of straits, handing out unnecessary punishments for things the clubs do not have full control over. Hertha look set to receive a chunky fine in light of Saturday's events, and the probability of a ban from playing in their own stadium for a while also seems very real. The club have of course vowed to ban the mindless minority of around 100 who stormed the field at the final whistle, having just minutes earlier witnessed their team concede a 92nd minute Angelos Charisteas goal which condemned Hertha to a 1-2 defeat against bitter relegation rivals Nürnberg, and a 12th home game in succession without a win.
Whilst the DFL (German Football League) and the DFB (German Football Association) prepare to make an example of Hertha in their battle against the brainless minority of football followers, Friedhelm Funkel and his team will surely want to concentrate on pulling off what would be an astonishing feat of escapism. With eight games remaining and nine points from safety, things are looking scarily bleak for the only Bundesliga side from the capital. And when one considers what Hertha have in store in terms of fixtures, the situation looks even more disastrous. In their last three games they have the daunting prospect of facing each of the title contenders - Schalke, Leverkusen and Bayern Munich - all of whom should still be fighting tooth and nail for the Bundesliga 'Schale'. Add to that the trio of Wolfsburg, Dortmund and Stuttgart, who are all clambering for the two Europa League spots and are in scintillating form, and Hertha's hopes look to have already passed them by.
The games they will have targeted as winnable, and thought it imperative to do so, have gone. Home ties against Borussia Mönchengladbach, Bochum, Mainz and Hoffenheim yielded a paltry three points, and despite randomly impressive 3-0 away victories at fellow strugglers Hannover and Freiburg, that is not enough. The reason for their precarious position is simple - they have not had enough quality to finish off the chances created and have been woeful at the back. The creation of chances has been very good in recent weeks, with creative midfield players like Cicero, Raffael and Fabian Lustenberger putting in impressive showings. The problem has been converting opportunities into goals.
However, on Saturday it was perhaps more bad luck, or rather the opposition being brilliant, than goalscoring ineptitude that was Berlin's Achilles heel. Nürnberg Coach Dieter Hecking summed it up succinctly: “Hertha were outstanding in the first half today. We have Raphael Schäfer (the Nürnberg goalkeeper) to thank that we did not get a hammering.” Unfortunately, with the fixtures coming up, Hertha could continue to be outstanding and still end up sliding down to the second Bundesliga. Their hopes of survival are certainly hanging by the thinnest of threads, and this realisation is why weeks of frustration and despair transformed itself into anger and violence amongst a handful of fans at the weekend. Although Hertha Berlin is not one of the biggest clubs in Germany in terms of success and status, it would be strange to experience a Bundesliga without a team from the capital city, and relegation could have significant consequences for the city and the league. But that is looking all but a certainty now, unless, as Hertha's Director of Sport Michael Preetz declared on Saturday, “a blue and white miracle” occurs.
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