Hertha BSC 0:0 Hannover 96

Yes, broad readership, it's another post about a soccer game. But insofar as I attend these events in large parts as windows on the local culture, this one was a major success (despite dull-seeming scoreline). Viz.,

Some games are memorable because they're great games; i.e., there are seven goals and the home team wins with a dramatic injury-time tally. Other games, however, are memorable irrespective of the quality of the play or the drama they may contain. These games are important because they matter. An obvious example from the American perspective is the seventh game of the world series. It could be a real snoozer of a contest, but because so much hangs on it, each moment seems fraught with tension.

The game I attended this Saturday between Hertha BSC (Berliner Sport Club) and Hannover 96 (in reference to 1896, when Hannover's professional soccer club was founded) was one of the latter. Though Berlin is the largest city in Germany, it's always been the weak sister in terms of soccer. The real powerhouses are to the south (Bayern Munich, VfB Stuttgart) and in the industrial west (Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund), and Hertha rarely accomplishes much. In a sense, this season was unexceptional: Bayern Munich (the NY Yankees of the German Bundesliga) sewed up the league championship with weeks to go, leaving little suspense on that front. However, Hertha had a good season and was in the running for a Champions League spot as the Hannover game approached.

(Brief aside: in addition to league play, European soccer clubs compete in international competitions where the top finishers in the domestic leagues from the previous year vie for the title of pan-European champion. Competing in the Champions League means enormous prestige, not to mention loads of cash, for the teams who qualify for a spot. There is also a second-tier Europe-wide international club competition, the UEFA Cup, in which the second-tier teams from each of the domestic leagues compete for a less prestigious trophy.)

The math was simple: if VfB Stuttgart lost, then Hertha needed only a win to qualify for the Champs League. Upon arriving at the game on Saturday, the first part of the equation was already falling into place, as Stuttgart went down two goals early to Bayern Munich. The atmosphere at Berlin's Olympiastadion was thus at a fever pitch (shameless borrowing from Nick Hornby, I know). Here I realize I'm sounding like a classic Europhile soccer snob, but there's simply nothing to compare with it in American sports culture. 75,000 people in the stadium (the same Berlin Olympiastadion built for the '36 Olympics where Jesse Owens showed up Hitler), of whom at least 20,000 are in the north end, all decked out in blue-and-white (team colors), singing at deafening volume, and waving huge flags. (Their counterparts, the Hannover supporters, numbered several thousand, and represented themselves well, at times making themselves audible over the pro-Berlin din.) The crowd was doubtlessly amped up also by the pregame promotion, "eins, zwei, drei, bier" in which the team expressed their appreciation to the supporters by flooding them with free booze.

When the game started, there seemed to be a sense of inevitability about the result. With that much energy behind them, the only question seemed to be how many goals Hertha would hang on Hannover. And throughout the first half, things went largely according to plan: Hertha poured forward, attacking the Hannover goal from the right flank again and again, and went close to scoring countless times. But when the halftime whistle blew, no goals for either team. The halftime atmosphere was still jubilant and the Harlekins Berlin (Hertha supporters) cheered the team back on the pitch in great voice. The first fifteen or so minutes of the second half saw a flurry of Hertha chances: Yildiray Basturk and the Brazilian #10 Marcelinho each had the ball fall to their feet in front of goal in what seemed like unmissable chances, yet when it appeared harder to score than to miss, they still put their shots wide, if by inches. The game continued scoreless into the last few minutes, when Hertha sent all their players forward and simply battered the Hannover goal with shots, again creating the sense that the goal to secure the Champions League was inevitable.

And then the ref blew the whistle, and the game ended, 0-0. With the tie, Hertha missed out on Champions League play and its concomitant money and prestige, and ended up instead with a spot in the UEFA Cup--the international club competition that most elite teams regard more as a chore than a privilege to play in. All of a sudden, the 75,000 went quiet (though there were a few jeering whistles), but after a few moments blue and white confetti rained down from the rafters and the loudspeaker began to play triumphant music. And no one left. They just stood there, dead quiet in their disappointment, looking out at the players, most of whom lay on the pitch out of sadness or fatigue or both. Then, slowly, slowly, the coach and owners came over to salute the fans, and after a pause, received polite applause. The rest of the coaching staff picked the players up off the ground and succeeded in convincing them to run a lap around the field waving to the fans, and as they did, it was clear that some of them were still crying.

The trip back to the stadium was similarly downcast. On the U-Bahn, I stood near a man who embodied team loyalty in all its absurd loss of perspective. This was a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper crew cut and rat-tail who wore a white jacket that was covered with patches commemorating his first love (Hertha BSC) as well as various other teams he had either visited (Bundesliga teams as well as ones from England, France, Spain) and Hertha's rivals (e.g., Werder Bremen; he had drawn a big black X through them). Easily the most pathetic part (as in pathos-inducing, not meant pejoratively) of the get up was that he carried with him a stuffed animal replica of the team's mascot, Kapt'n Blaubär (a blue and white bear; bears are the emblematic animal of Berlin) that had a little horn that you could squeeze to make a noise to celebrate Hertha goals and victories. Even outside the S-Bahn station, on the other side of the city from the Olympiastadion, things continued in the same vein. There was a bum shouting something over and over again; as I listened it became clear that what he was saying was "nul-nul" (the score of the game, 0-0), and as people passed by him they shook their heads and laughed ruefully.

Tough luck for them, but as an outside observer it was all the same to me. I was there in large part to see Steve Cherundolo, the American right-back who plays for Hannover, and while I'm certainly biased, I was utterly impressed at how well he played. It's often hard to rate defenders. With a forward, the performance is easier to measure. They have chances, they take or miss them. With defenders, there are no objective benchmarks against withc to measure their play. Despite that, however, there was no missing that 'Dolo had an excellent game. To the extent that Hertha attacked down the left, he was a constant thorn in their side, winning balls, executing clean tackles, and dribbling out of trouble. He also drew the only yellow card of the game when he won a ball and was rewarded with an overzealous tackle from the Hertha player whose pocket he had picked. More often than not, however, Hertha attacked down the right, which is a testament to the respect they had for 'Dolo's game. On the few occasions that 'Dolo pressed forward, he did well, including drawing the foul that led to Hannover's best chance of the second half (free kick leading to a great opportunity at the top of the box that the Hannover forward--some big bald brute--skied over the crossbar). I never rated Steve that highly until recently, but he may well be our best defender at the moment.