Hertha BSC says goodbye to the long winter break with a much-needed sense of achievement. The Berliners won their last game before the World Cup 2-0 (1-0) against 1. FC Köln - and also benefited from an almost impossible miss and usury of chances from Köln.
Sargis Adamyan made it into the Bundesliga history books this Saturday afternoon. In the future, his name will occupy a prominent place in the "most colossal misses" chapter. The 1. FC Köln striker started eleven terrible minutes for his team with a bad mistake in the end. Trailing 1-0 at Hertha from Berlin, the Armenian is suddenly free and alone in front of the goal. The ball comes, Adamyan hits it. But so unlucky that he sails onto the bar. From three meters.
It's a scene reminiscent of Mario Gomez's tragic legend moment in the national team shirt. At the 2008 European Championship, in the last group game against Austria, as Germany were fighting for a place in the quarter-finals, the striker cleared the ball just before the goal line. Just stupid: It was the opponent's goal line. Since then, whenever a player's nerves fail in the best position, the torero's story is unpacked again and freshly told. "I have no idea what was going on there," Adamyan said on WDR2. "I thought it couldn't be. But you have to keep going."
"The ball bounces a bit. I hit it with the instep but wanted to hit it with the inside - and then it just goes over the goal," explained Adamyan. It has nothing to do with a lack of luck, "the chance just has to come in," he emphasized. Coach Steffen Baumgart meanwhile took the missed shot with humour. He was asked if he had seen anything like this before. "Yes, when I was a striker," Baumgart joked and then defended his attacker: "We don't have to evaluate the scene. That's annoying for us, of course, but we don't have to do that much with it."
But back to Adamyan, he could have blitz-rehabilitated himself against Hertha. Ten minutes after his aerial shot, however, he failed again. After a corner, the ball slipped through to him, but from five meters he failed at the strong goalkeeper Oliver Christensen. Berlin in luck and Berlin strained this momentum a few seconds longer. After a strong solo, Linton Maina gently pushed the ball past the post. Steffen Baumgart couldn't believe it. Steffen Baumgart despaired. "The first chance to score is right there, then we have two huge ones that don't go in. In the second half you could see that the air was gone," said the coach. "The boys are through. The only one who was relatively fit was me."
With 0:2 (0:1) the Cologne team finally lost to the Hertha team. The goals were scored by Wilfried Kanga (9th) and Marco Richter (54th). With the victory, Sandro Schwarz's team left the relegation zone (that's where VfB Stuttgart is now spending the long World Cup break) and dragged the staggering Effzeh into the class war. For the Baumgart men it had not looked like that for a long time. Even if it was already over in the first round of the DFB Cup (on penalties against second division SSV Jahn Regensburg). In the Bundesliga, the team inspired again and again with their tireless, passionate and eternally courageous football and the trip to Europe was also thrilling, even if it ended in the group stage.
But the injury-ridden team has been dragging itself through the games for weeks. The wear and tear of strength can no longer be concealed. The last league success was on October 16, on the 11th day of the game. At that time, FC Augsburg was defeated 3:2. Since then four bankruptcies and only one draw. The fact that there is now a break is good for the batteries of the billy goats, but bad for the mood. The last impression remains and the fight to stay up in the league is now becoming more and more of an issue for the Cologne team, as Baumgart also found: "We are in a relegation battle, you don't have to talk around it. Everything else is window dressing."
Which also becomes an issue, the search for a new striker. The gap left by Anthony Modeste after moving to BVB in late summer is simply too big and has not yet been closed because a solution from his own portfolio has not been successful so far.
