Boateng and Korkut call for "heads held high" after loss
It definitely wasn't Hertha's night on Tuesday at Mainz's MEWE Arena. A positive run of form under new trainer Tayfun Korkut came to an abrupt halt with a resounding 0-4 defeat.
The team's designate veteran leader nevertheless didn't wish to disregard the upward trends that the team had recently shown.
The team's designate veteran leader nevertheless didn't wish to disregard the upward trends that the team had recently shown.
| Kevin-Prince Boateng. |
Unfortunately, nothing went right at the MEWE Arena on Tuesday night. Korkut's "alte Dame" conceded four, scored none, and may have Stevan Jovetic and Suat Serdar to injury for the upcoming match against Dortmund on Saturday night.
"We in no way managed the calm ball possession we were striving for," the new head-coach of the Charlottenburgers noted afterwards, "Then we couldn't cope with the intensity and that presented us with major problems. It was a total second-rate performance from us this evening. Now we have to figure out how to hold our heads up high again."
The team's veteran leader--and Charlottenburg native--Kevin Prince Boateng more or less echoed his trainer's sentiments. After labelling the loss "a total team breakdown", the 34-year-old then proceeded to note that "it's not all that bad."
"We had two good games," Boateng noted, "Something like tonight can happen. It just wasn't our day. We didn't get into the game at all, from the first to the last minute. That's how you lose 0-4. We lost all the duels."
Boateng then made clear, not unlike Korkut, that there wasn't much time to dwell on it; certainly not with Dortmund coming up at home in Saturday night's "Top-Spiel".
"It's not that bad," the second-half substitute said with his focus clearly on the next game, "We're playing at home [against Dortmund] and we want to show precisely what we demonstrated in the two games prior: Commitment. Will. Good football. If we can do that, we're hard to beat."