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Clean your mouth, carry on: Hertha's Jhon Cordoba went goalless against his ex-club Cologne
Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
The "Big City Club" has become a catchphrase, sometimes a mockery word.
Lars Windhorst, investor in Bundesliga soccer team Hertha BSC, used Anglicism to underline his ambitions (and those of the club): out of the Bundesliga mediocrity, into the European Cup.
After 15 match days this season, not much seems to have changed in Berlin: In the table, the tenth of the previous year is in 13th place at 1. FC Köln - a club that is facing relegation this season - it was only enough to an arduous 0-0.
The sporting goals are far away, the football that is played is astonishingly conservative in view of the approximately 110 million euros that have been taken over the past twelve months to replace new players.
In terms of sport, there is a gap between aspiration and reality - the Hertha team won only one of the last six games.
The findings on the Hertha crisis:
1. Berlin is not the city of creative people
Three strikers were against the Cologne team in Bruno Labbadia's starting line-up.
Jhon Cordoba, Krzysztof Piatek and Dodi Lukebakio should cause danger against the relegation candidate.
That failed across the board - and came as no surprise.
All three players have different strengths: Piatek is a two-footed striker in the penalty area, Lukebakio is a deep sprinter with a pull to the goal, Cordoba is a massive wall player who can also handle high passes.
What they all have in common, however, is that they prefer to be at the end of a turn and can best bring their skills to bear when someone else uses them accordingly.
The problem: only one player in the squad is reliably capable of this.
Matheus Cunha is Berlin's top scorer with six goals, and four times he prepared goals.
Against Cologne, Cunha, who last had to pause with a groin problem, came off the bench half an hour before the end of the game.
During this time, the Brazilian was involved in four deals, the best at Hertha BSC.
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Matheus Cunha also had a difficult time against Cologne, but still caused most of the danger
Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
In the Berlin game, Cunha stands for creativity, for surprise.
Together with Dortmund's Jadon Sancho, the attacker dares the most dribbles per game across the league (source: whoscored.com).
If Cunha is missing, it will be a disaster for the Berlin offensive.
Playing Cunha doesn't solve all the problems either: On the one hand, the Brazilian X-factor still allows a certain calculability, on the other hand, Bruno Labbadia criticized Cunha in the past for his lack of tactical discipline.
2. The search for a clear game philosophy is still ongoing
As coach of VfL Wolfsburg, Bruno Labbadia last reached the Europa League, he started in Berlin in the spring and managed to stabilize Hertha BSC within a very short time.
But: In his coaching career, Labbadia only stayed in Darmstadt (2003-2006) and Stuttgart (2010-2013) for more than two years.
So far, Labbadia has been developing its teams in a correspondingly pragmatic manner.
Hertha BSC would be particularly happy to develop a viable gaming philosophy: Small clubs like SC Freiburg or the more successful city rival Union Berlin offset economic disadvantages through continuity and a clear sporting idea.
It has not yet been said that Labbadia cannot do that too.
The 54-year-old is the fifth Hertha coach in the past two years;
there was hardly any foundation on which it could have built.
But: In the ball possession game in particular, the processes to get dangerously in front of the opponent's goal are still missing.
The Berliners will not qualify for the European competition through the individual class alone.
3. Hertha lacks quality when it comes to standards
15 match days have been completed, Hertha BSC scored a single goal after set pieces.
Union holds the top value of the league with nine hits after dormant balls.
There is no shortage of body length and robustness, sometimes even a nominal central defender played this season with Niklas Stark as an additional clearer in midfield.
Even if an outstanding shooter may be missing in the squad at the moment: Standards can be trained with relatively little effort, but can make a difference in many points over the season, especially given the high level of performance in the Bundesliga midfield.
The Berliners also have some catching up to do defensively: six goals conceded after standard situations are the second worst value behind Schalke 04.
4. Little replenishment from the offspring
Another pithy Hertha slogan says that the future belongs to Berlin (and thus to the club).
Specifically, this means: The capital city want to bring players from their own youth department to the Bundesliga stage, preferably to make them top performers.
Until then, however, there is a long way to go.
From Saturday's starting line-up, only left-back Maximilian Mittelstädt was trained in his own youth.
Most recently, some of the top talents from Berlin left the club before the breakthrough: playmaker Lazar Samardzic joined league competitor RB Leipzig in the summer, central defender Omar Rekik moved to Arsenal's U23 at the beginning of January.
Sixth Arne Maier was loaned to Arminia Bielefeld.
Striker Jessic Ngankam (20 years) and the defenders Konstantin Netz (17 years) and Márton Dardai (18 years) have already made short appearances, but not beyond.
And perhaps the greatest talent in Berlin at the moment, central defender Jordan Torunarigha, is still looking for his form after an injury to the syndesmosis ligament.
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