With energy and aggression

Every year the same questions remains ahead of the clash with Bayern whether it is the hardest or the easiest home game of the season. Whatever the answer, it was clear to see that there was plenty of enthusiasm and anticipation ahead of the game in the Blue-White camp, from the players, coaches and fans. Hertha host Bayern on Saturday (05.11.22, 15:30 CET), in front of a likely sell-out crowd. Sandro Schwarz has already turned his attention to Hertha’s plan of attack for this game after the painfully close 1-0 defeat in Bremen. “We can’t allow ourselves to say: ‘Oh no, now we are up against Bayern!’ We all know the quality that they have. However, we have to focus on ourselves and have the determination on the day to want to win every challenge,” explained Hertha’s head coach. The 44-year-old got stuck straight into his plan to do just that with his players on Monday.

Video analysis first, then into the hard work

Before Hertha got onto the pitch, there was first a video analysis session of Friday nights game on the agenda. “It is important to work on the way we played. Our focus is on defensive consistency as well as the final last few passes in attack. This was not good enough, we should have created more chances,” said Schwarz. In the following training session, captainMarvin Plattenhardt and his teammates worked on just that. After warming-up with the ball, the Hertha players set up eleven-on-eleven on a slightly smaller pitch. This developed into a quick game back-and-forth, with lots of challenges, quick transitions and loud commands. Schwarz, who initially was actively coaching, encouraged the team through the ever-increasing fog to “pass on the ground”. Dodi Lukébakio, who looked in good touch, was not the only player to benefit, scoring a couple of goals. “It is important to make sure we quickly look forward again. I think we have done that well and we have come into the session full of energy. Against Bayern it will be important to play with a certain aggression on the day. We have to make the most of the space that we get to the best of our abilities,” explained our head coach after the roughly an hour long session.

Four Blue-Whites miss out –Scherhant takes part in recovery session
Stevan Jovetić was absent for the customary warm-up ahead of today’s session. The Montenegrin had to be substituted against Werder just after the half-hour mark after suffering a minor groin strain. “Jove will miss out on Saturday,” said Schwarz. “It might be the case that we will change the way we set up because of that. We definitely have a couple of systems in mind, but we will have to wait and see over the next few days what we go with,” he added. Schwarz is still without the unavailable Kélian Nsona, Jessic Ngankam and Márton Dárda, while Derry Scherhant took part in a recovery session after playing for the U23s.

The next open training session will be on Tuesday (01.11.22, 15:30 CET), while the rest of the week’s training sessions before the clash with the German record champions will be behind closed doors. Having played last Friday, Hertha have one extra day of training to the usual, which the side want to take full advantage of. “The bottom line is that we need to put in a top performance and obviously also need a bit of luck for the game to go our way. What we want to do is frustrate Bayern a little, with plenty of energy and the fans right behind us,” explained Schwarz. The start of this process has begun.