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Hertha logo [Wikipedia

“Hertha Berlin, known as the Old Lady of German soccer, is finding her feet after a nasty fall into debt and decline.” – So reads the first sentence in a very good article which appeared in yesterdays New York Times by one of  its sports writer Rob Hughes. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/sports/soccer/05iht-soccer05.html

What follows is one of those typically popular, heart-warming American type of come-back stories about the Berlin Hertha team – back from a year in ’2nd division prison’- and its coach Markus Babbel, back from a life-threatening immune system disorder.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Babbel

The article says that they now make quite a good couple – and we can only agree!

With debts amounting to 30 million Euro, and banished to the 2nd division not many would have given the club too much of a ‘come-back’ chance.

However, while still early into the long Bundesliga season, it looks like Hertha Berlin will at least not be relegated back this year – and that is in itself a victory.

Hertha needs to start filling its stadium – the Olympic Stadium of Berlin. It is one of the largest football stadiums in Germany where the World Cup final was held in 2006 and can seat up to 75,000 football fans-  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium_(Berlin)

Berlin Olympic Stadium - foto from Wikipedia by Chrisgj6

Last week the Pope was in this same stadium – no goals, other than perhaps an own-goal! [ see previous blog article - http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/09/24/10000-berliners-march-against-pope-in-berlin-ota-berlin-constituency-blog-commentary-by-emil-hoogensteyn/ ]

The Hertha team has no real ‘stars’ as such – the only ‘star’ is Brazilian Raffael Caetano de Araújo, about whom this blog has often written with much praise. He has stayed with the club through good times and bad – a loyalty not often seen in the sport with many prima-donnas strikers changing clubs every year. And some as recently in the UK even refused to play!

http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/tag/raffael-caetano-de-araujo/

and

http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/04/10/hertha-berlin-reborn-%E2%80%93-motivated-midfielder-%E2%80%98raffael%E2%80%99-caetano-de-araujo-%E2%80%93-reviewing-his-old-goals-on-dvd/

The fact that the New York Times is writing about them perhaps shows they are on the correct path.

Long may this Hertha renaissance continue in this 2011/2012 season – Berlin needs not only a team in the Bundesliga but it needs a first rate team in First division!

Vote for your favorite Bundesliga team at – http://e-u-r-o-2012.com/

Hertha are presently in 3rd place on this poll.

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‘For Hertha Berlin, a Comeback for Coach and Club’ New York Times lauds Berlin football team from OTA Berlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany License. If you use this article or parts of it, please refer to http://www.ota-berlin.de.

Tags: hertha berlin, Markus Babbel, new york times, olympic stadium Berlin, Raffael Caetano de Araújo, ROB HUGHES

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 11:11 and is filed under Berlin, Bundesliga, Football Europe, Hertha Berlin, Sports Berlin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.