OTA Berlin Apartments

What an upset – what a shocker and yes even for Hertha Berlin fans!

Hertha Berlin, just a couple of weeks after their re-entry into the Bundesliga after having been relegated to the 2nd division last year, beat the current reigning champions, Dortmund!

After this game Dortmund side are now ….wait for it…..10th in the table! Always the consummate gentleman, Jurgen Klopp Dortmund’s manager at the end of the game admitted that ‘Hertha deserved to win the game’.

The action all came in the 2nd half of the game with the game being scoreless at ½ time. However Hertha upped the tempo and enjoyed the better part of the opening and it was left for Raffael Caetano de Araújo who went run-about beating defenders to get a direct shot on goal. However the Dortmund goalie was not asleep and prevented an immediate goal. But Mister Raffael is if nothing else persistent and put the rebound into net!

Dortmund 0 – Hertha Berlin 1!

There were 3400 Hertha fans who went along for the game and they went bezerk!

Dortmund had to take immediate remedial action and threw everything forward but lacked the creativity and luck which stood them in such good stead last season.

Hertha did not panic and their defence and midfield remained solid in fact they had a great chance to increase their lead when an unmarked [?!] Raffael hit the cross bar.

Then the newly spirited Dortmund sent a projectile which hit the Hertha crossbar – however all to no avail and Hertha in the form of its central defender Peter Niemeyer in the 81st minute pushed the ball across the line …2-0 to Hertha!

Seven minutes later Borussia Dortmund were shaken out of their stupor and the Polish international Lewandowski headed the ball home into the net from the near post.

The remaining 12 minutes plus 4 minutes of extra time saw a concentrated last effort of Dortmund to salvage a tie but Hertha survived the onslaught and celebrated their first away win of this new Bundesliga.

This was a well deserved win by Hertha season and based on their second half performance well deserved.

In other weekend news Bayern Munchen striker Mario Gomez – top Bundesliga scorer last season -scored 4 goals and French international Franck Ribery 2 goals as Bayern pulverized Freiburg 7-0 Saturday. With so many goals and with this positive goal balance – it takes them to the top of the Bundesliga.

They will have to play Villarreal in Spain this coming week in Champions League action and with Arjen Robben back in action they probably can keep this great scoring pace – but don’t expect any 7-0 results in the Champions League!

Other Bundesliga games this weekend saw Borussia Mönchengladbach beat Kaiserslautern, and Bayer Leverkusen beat Augsburg 4-1.

Hoffenheim moved to 6th place after crushing Mainz away 4-0 with Dutch striker Ryan Babbel scoring 2 goals.

Werder Bremen beat losers Hamburg SV at home 2-0. Claudio Pizarro, was man-of-the-match for Werder scoring 2 great goals. He was brought off at game’s end to a standing ovation. The former ‘bad-boy’ Peruvian international seems to be the scorer they so desperately need at the moment.

On Sunday Schalke 04, travelled to VfL Wolfsburg only to see a Raul goal in the first half be overtaken by a better playing Wolsburg in the 2nd half. Striker Mandzukic was man of the match and new Swedish signing Rasmus Jönsson formerly from Helsingborg IF made a very positive impression in this his first Bundesliga game.

Schalke goalie Fährmann looked like he came from a 2nd division team – who were probably glad to get rid of him! Perhaps he was ‘having a bad day’ – well it certainly was a bad day with him seemingly unable to hold even the most simple of crosses. While he could do nothing about the last deflected goal, he also had Raul of all people save a sure goal when he headed from the goal mouth.

He is supposed to replace a great keeper Manual Neuer, but he has a long way to go to get anywhere near Neuer’s type of competence!