The Set: Arminia 1–1 Hertha Berlin

Arminia Biele­feld gained a point and a lit­tle breath­ing room in their fight to stay up this year. Things didn’t start brightly when their defend­ers fell asleep and allowed Andriy Voronin to ghost onto a ball deliv­ered by keeper Jaroslav Drobny and slot home a 13′ lead. They lev­eled in the 40′ when right back Radim Kucera deliv­ered a pin­point cross which Artur Wich­niarek headed home.

Hertha def­i­nitely missed lead­ing scorer Marko Pan­telic as Raf­fael and Voronin didn’t click as a front two; how­ever, they prob­a­bly missed Gojko Kacar even more, as their mid­field lacked bite and was beaten up by Bielefeld’s pair­ing of Kauf and Marx. The point will keep them in the race for the title, but injuries may have lost them an addi­tional two points, as at full strength they are a much bet­ter squad than Arminia.

Seven Things You May Not Have Known About Arminia-Hertha

1. I got my first look at star­let Amine Cher­miti, who played for the third time for the Old Lady. He had good move­ment and almost scored late on a Nicu feed. He does seem to have the mak­ings of a kid that will live up to the billing in the years to come.
2. Biele­feld trainer Michael Frontzeck looks like a kid dressed by his mother with that scarf wrapped so tightly around his neck.
3. Peo­ple are sur­prised by Hertha’s high posi­tion in the table, but they shouldn’t be. Favre has built a highly orga­nized defense that is very dif­fi­cult to break down. For a team that is cur­rently sec­ond, they have few goals (30) which tells you all you need to know about their defense. Unfor­tu­nately, it was said defen­sive orga­ni­za­tion that worked against them on the goal. Wichiarek spent the first half try­ing to pull the defend­ers out of posi­tion to cre­ate seams in their back line. It didn’t work, but when he scored, he had run in from the left and was marked by right back Cufre rather than one of their taller cen­ter halves.
4. And speak­ing of…Is their any more valu­able player to a squad than Wich­niarek is to Biele­feld? He has 12 of their 19 goals this sea­son and has a 4–5-1 built around his skill and graft. If they sur­vive he def­i­nitely deserves a nod for player of the year.
5. Looks like Favre’s dip into the trans­fer mar­ket was one win and one loss. Cufre was poor. He was out-jumped by Wich­niarek, nut­megged for another shot on goal and picked on by Biele­feld so much that Favre subbed him at the half. Maco Babic, on the other hand, was an ener­getic intro­duc­tion in the 65′ that changed the shape of the mid­field and ener­gized a list­less mid­field late in the game.
6. Raf­fael and Cicero were non-existent in the game. Nei­ther helped to cre­ate any chances as Cicero was marked out of the game by Kauf and Marx. Mean­while Raf­fael found a dead man’s land between Voronin and the mid­field where the ball was afraid to ven­ture into. Voronin was forced to do most of his own work.
7. Around the 77 minute mark, Drobny caught a ball that any other keeper would have par­ried over the bar as it was blasted by Oliver Kirch. It’s rare that we see keep­ers catch rather than punch, but his save was as good as any catch by Ari­zona Car­di­nal Larry Fitzgerald.

Tagged as: Andriy Voronin, Artur Wichniarek, Lucien Favre