If the Bundesliga season ended today, Hertha Berlin would finish fifth and qualify for the Europa League.
More than a month into the campaign, very few expected die Alte Dame to return to the Bundesliga on such high footing. The demolishing of Eintracht Frankfurt in the season opener was more than just a fluke, as Hertha extended its unbeaten streak to three matches until its loss to Wolfsburg three weeks later.
But familiarity is something the Old Lady knows best. Hertha has been through the promotion and relegation beat all too often. What the team desperately needs right now is to stay up and display consistency at the highest level, something that has evaded them the past several years.
This is not the first time Hertha has surprised and exceeded expectations. In the 2008-09 season, Hertha finished fourth and qualified for the Europa League under coach Lucien Favre, who is now at Borussia Moenchengladbach. Only six points separated Hertha from Bundesliga title winners Wolfsburg that season. The success sparked so much excitement that some supporters believed the Berliners could legitimately go all the way the following year.
But the Old Lady failed to repeat and build on that breakout performance. Instead of growth, the club found itself in survival mode the next season, plummeting to 18th and dropping to the second division for the first time in over a decade. Their Europa League dreams also ended in the group stage.
The "Bayern of division two," however, didn’t stay in the lower flight for long and a year later returned to the Bundesliga. But defying gravity was harder for die Blau-Weissen and the team ended back in the lower division after losing a controversial playoff relegation match to Fortuna Duesseldorf that featured flares, fans invading the pitch and a 20 minute interruption. Hertha appealed the result but lost.
So far the team’s journey has been more about survival than a steady trajectory of improvement. But at least under current Dutch coach Jos Luhukay, who has been with the club since last July, there’s been a greater sense of stability after the period of turmoil that ensued when Markus Babbel departed. In a span of six months, the team hired and fired two coaches, including Michael Skibbe, who lasted five games, and German great Otto Rehhagel, who coached Greece to glory at Euro 2004. Rehhagel lasted less than five months.
Since the promotion, Luhukay has brought in a few familiar faces from his coaching days at Borussia Monchengladbach and Augsburg with the likes of Alexander Baumjohann, Johannes van den Bergh, Hajime Hosogai and Sebastian Langkamp.
Luhukay’s faith in striker Adrian Ramos has also been rewarded. Ramos, of course, has been with the club since 2009 and has experienced all the ups and downs in the last several years. The Colombian currently ranks second in team scoring with three goals behind Sami Allagui.
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While performances on the pitch are within the club’s power, dealing with external distractions in Berlin can be difficult. There’s good reason Babbel never liked the media in the city. He once said its coverage was either black or white, with no consideration of the grey areas.
The same paper that once claimed Babbel had told them in an interview he’d tattoo a Hertha flag on his body (which was untrue) broke a story about a "Lolita scandal" involving three current and two former players. The footballers were alleged to have had sexual contact with a 16 year old, who pretended to be 19, after exchanging information during an autograph session in April.
Of course Boulevard Blatt B.Z. is a tabloid and therefore thrives on scandals (think of the Daily Mail), but unverified and unproven stories of this nature can often cause unwarranted damage. While the club declined to offer details over the allegations, it did take legal action.
As it turned out the girl in question made up the entire story. She not only lied about the sexual relationships but also about her age, as well as falsified her parents’ signature in order to give the interview.
Fortunately, Hertha managed to overcome the storm and didn’t allow the scandal to influence its performances on the field. But the team does need to improve its away record as they have yet to win a game on the road. Their offensive command also isn’t the same as when playing in the Olympiastadion, where 10 of their 13 goals have been scored.
While the team has created plenty of opportunities, finishing has been another concern. With a total of 19 attempts on goal against Stuttgart’s eight, the Old Lady failed to score a single goal and lost the match. But their most recent game against Mainz did show a bit more promise as the team came away with three goals on nine attempts.
Despite the recent spell of success, Hertha has been in this position before. What matters to the club in the long-term is to escape the cycle of promotion and relegation that has marred its previous few seasons.
Alima Hotakie is a Toronto-based writer. Follow her on Twitter.