Hertha braced for tough restart as relegation battle rages

BERLIN : Relegation-threatened Hertha Berlin face a tough Bundesliga restart with a match against fellow strugglers VfL Bochum followed by games against VfL Wolfsburg and the Berlin derby against Union, but club bosses are feeling confident.

Hertha have gone through turbulent times in recent seasons with a massive 350 million euro ($380 million) investment from financier Lars Windhorst not leading to better results on the pitch with the club continuing to struggle in the top division.

The Berliners have had seven coaches in the last three years with Sandro Schwarz in charge since the start of the season. They are in 15th place on 14 points, one above 17th-placed Bochum.

"We are fully aware of the situation we are in and that we have a lot of work in front of us," Hertha sports director Fredi Bobic said on Friday.

"For us every game is a final. Yes, we have a good feeling. The performances (in the first half) did not match the points we have so far. We have to get the points."

"We are not saying everything is super but we have a compact team that is also healthy in numbers and as a united team we must land these points," he told reporters in Florida.

Hertha are wrapping up their training camp in Florida this week, having also gone unbeaten in all their friendly matches in January, further boosting Bobic's confidence.

"I am very happy with the training camp. We need to be calmer, especially around the box. There are things we want to improve on. We want to play an active game. Especially in attack."

"Overall it went really well. Next week in Bochum hopefully we can show all the good things," he said.

($1 = 0.9218 euros)