It was definitely not Hertha's night on Tuesday at the MEWE Arena in Mainz. A positive streak under new coach Tayfun Korkut was abruptly stopped with a resounding 0-4 loss.
However, the team's designated veteran leader was unwilling to ignore the upward trends the team had recently displayed.
The Tayfun Korkut era looked promising to start in the country's capital. A draw against Stuttgart in round 14 and a very encouraging win over Bielefeld at home in round 15 seemed to herald the beginning of a sea change.
Unfortunately, nothing went right at the MEWE Arena on Tuesday night. Korkut's 'alte Dame' gave up four, scored none and may have injured Stevan Jovetic and Suat Serdar ahead of Saturday night's game against Dortmund.
"In no way have we achieved the quiet possession we wanted," the new Charlottenburgers coach later noted. “So we couldn't handle the intensity and that created big problems. It was a second rate performance, our performance tonight. Now we have to figure out how to hold our heads up again.
The experienced Charlottenburg-born team leader Kevin Prince Boateng more or less echoed his coach's sentiments. After labeling the loss as "a total collapse of the team," the 34-year-old commented that "it's not that bad."
"We had two good games," said Boateng, "Something like tonight could happen. It just wasn't our day. We didn't get into the game at all, from the first to the last minute. This is how you lose 0 -4. We have lost all the games «.
Boateng later made it clear, like Korkut, that there wasn't much time to think about it; certainly not when Dortmund return home for the 'Top-Spiel' on Saturday night.
"It's not so bad," said the substitute in the second half, with a clear look on the next game. “We play at home [against Dortmund] and we want to show exactly what we showed in the previous two games: Commitment. Shall. Good football. If we can do that, we are hard to beat.