Lassoga Loves the Limelight

Hertha BSC 2-0 VFL Bochum

Hertha's head coach Markus Babbel's decision to drop the tired Friend and hand a debut start to Lassoga, proved to be a masterstroke, as the young forward bagged himself a brace in a vital 3 points for the Hertha. The result also meant that ex coach Funkel, endured a miserable return to the Olympic Stadium.


The tie between featuring two of the sides relegated from the Bundesliga at the end of last season has a little extra spice too, with Friedhelm Funkel, who was in charge of Hertha last season, returning to the capital city in charge of Bochum.

Markus Babbel raised many eyebrows ahead of the Bochum clash by handing starts to Ronny and Lasogga playing respectively in place of the suspended Ramos and Friend, the latter failing to score in any of his team's last five matches, with Babbel stating that Friend was "Putting too much pressure on himself". They were the only changes to the Hertha starting line-up which suffered their opening league defeat of the season, losing by a single goal to Paderborn last weekend.

Bochum started brightly enough, yet it didn't take long for Hertha began to get a grip on things and first threatened when Lassoga rushed a header, and Bochum keeper Luthe did well to deny Raffael. Bochum's keeper was to grab the spotlight yet again as a misunderstanding between himself and Yahia almost gifted Hertha their opening goal. Luthe came out and flapped at a ball and Lasogga waited a split second too long, allowing the Algerian defender to clear his lines. Only seconds later the Bochum shot stopper did well to take the sting out of a Ronny rocket from distance.

Hertha looked to attack Bochum at every opportunity - a tactic that the Ruhr Valley side did not enjoy to say the least. The Berliners were hardly recognisable to the team which performed so dismally in Paderborn last time out, with the bit between their teeth, they clearly had something to prove in front of their home faithful. Hertha's persistence finally paid off when they won a corner out on the right. Up stepped Raffael to curl it to the far post, out came Luthe but he royally mugged himself as the ball sailed past him. Lasogga rose to almost back-head the ball into the back of the net, before running off to celebrate with Hertha fans in the east stand. Hertha dropped down a gear after taking the lead, allowing Bochum more possession, having said that, they did nothing to capitalise on their increased possession, far from it. A wayward Frederico long distance effort was all they had to offer.

Both coaches kept faith with their respective first half line-ups and it was Bochum who would enjoy the opening goalmouth action of the second half as Dabrowski forced Sejna into a fabulous reflex save, after slack marking allowed the Bochum skipper to get a dangerous header in. VfL were better organised and had more presence all of a sudden, while Hertha seemed content to wait and see what the visitors would throw at them. A superb solo run by Rukavytsya had the huge crowd of 28,973 holding their collective breath as he crossed low into the middle and Lasogga missed the pass by a whisker. Hertha doubled their lead on 69 minutes as Luthe parried a fierce Rukavytsya shot from 25 metres to his right. Only problem was Lasogga was lurking, like the demon goal poacher he will inevitably turn into, waiting to pounce and pounce he most certainly did firing the rebound home with a crisp left foot shot. Superb goal and no more than Hertha deserved.

The score line remained at 2-0 to Hertha, who are in action again on Friday night as Babbel and his table-toppers take on VfL Osnabrück in their own back yard. The latest victory saw Hertha restore their two point cushion at the top of the second division table

Hertha BSC: Sejna – Lell, Hubnik, Neumann, Kobiashvili – Niemeyer - Rukavytsya, Domovchiyski (65. Perdedaj), Raffael (88. Djuricin), Ronny (65. Schulz) - Lasogga

Goals: Lasogga (32, 69)
Att: 28.973
Referee: Guido Winkmann

Viva Hertha!!