Marked for Michaël Cuisance
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Jul 2027
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hertha BSC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market5 Jul 2027
The paperwork is done: Abdoulie Ceesay joins from St. Pauli in a deal worth $9.9M. Now comes the harder part.
Market5 Jul 2027
TSG Hoffenheim pay $4.6M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market5 Jul 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Abdoulie Ceesay gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Abdoulie Ceesay has just signed for Hertha BSC, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Hertha BSC had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bayern Munich, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Julian Hettwer was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Hertha BSC asked and Werder Bremen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market5 Jul 2027
Add another name to the list: SC Freiburg have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Sebastian Grønning. The answer from Hertha BSC has not changed — yet.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Jun 2027
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hertha BSC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Hertha BSC offered $18.5M; Kaiserslautern said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
Dawid Kownacki: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hertha BSC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market28 Jun 2027
Diego Demme hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hertha BSC can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
This is not rotation. Michaël Cuisance has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Hertha BSC is pretending otherwise.
Market28 Jun 2027
The offer from SC Freiburg for Marten Winkler was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Hertha BSC asked and Bayern Munich said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Hertha BSC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jeremy Dudziak
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hertha BSC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout31 May 2027
This is not rotation. Michaël Cuisance has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Hertha BSC is pretending otherwise.
Squad31 May 2027
Jefferson Cardona and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Hertha BSC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Grønning is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad31 May 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hertha BSC can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout31 May 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hertha BSC, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout31 May 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout31 May 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market31 May 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Sebastian Grønning may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom24 May 2027
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Boardroom24 May 2027
Mathematically certain, and nobody in this town is going to bed early. Whatever else happened this season, it finishes a division above where it started.
Squad24 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jeremy Dudziak
66 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hertha BSC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad24 May 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Hertha BSC will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad24 May 2027
Fabian Reese and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout24 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Dawid Kownacki
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Loan watch24 May 2027
8 shut-outs in 16 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Konstantin Heide has been having a lot of them.
Market24 May 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jefferson Cardona’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 May 2027
80 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hertha BSC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout10 May 2027
Toni Leistner: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hertha BSC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market10 May 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Suat Serdar wants continental football; whether Hertha BSC can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Match8 May 2027
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 May 2027
Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match8 May 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Dženan Pejčinović’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Hertha BSC.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Dženan Pejčinović was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout10 May 2027
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Lars Walter on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad3 May 2027
88 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hertha BSC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match1 May 2027
The run at home goes on for Hertha BSC
18 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad3 May 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Jefferson Cardona
23 goals and a season average of 7.54 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Match1 May 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 11 matches without defeat is a foundation Hertha BSC did not have in the autumn.
The dugout3 May 2027
This is not rotation. Michaël Cuisance has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Hertha BSC is pretending otherwise.
Squad3 May 2027
Jefferson Cardona and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match1 May 2027
Hertha BSC are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Match1 May 2027
It finished 3‑2, and it was Dženan Pejčinović’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Hertha BSC.
Player ratings3 May 2027
A performance of 8.89 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jeremy Dudziak
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hertha BSC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match10 Apr 2027
Hertha BSC make home a hard place to visit
17 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Market12 Apr 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hertha BSC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Apr 2027
19 goals and a season average of 7.43. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.32 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match10 Apr 2027
Whatever happens, Hertha BSC do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Jefferson Cardona and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Hertha BSC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Ninety minutes of Jefferson Cardona at his very best
Marked 8.11. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Hertha BSC.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match3 Apr 2027
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Hertha BSC scored in the 94th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A brace, and Raphaël Guerreiro takes the afternoon — 8.64
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Raphaël Guerreiro provided it, and the 8.64 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A season average of 7.41 with 18 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Hertha BSC may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match3 Apr 2027
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Hertha BSC have 4 straight wins of it.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
This is not rotation. Michaël Cuisance has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Hertha BSC is pretending otherwise.
Match3 Apr 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Raphaël Guerreiro. 3‑2 against Arminia Bielefeld, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Fabian Reese was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A row about effort at Hertha BSC
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market15 Mar 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hertha BSC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market15 Mar 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jefferson Cardona commits to Hertha BSC for another 5 years.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Jefferson Cardona and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces15 Mar 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Dženan Pejčinović has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A row about effort at Hertha BSC
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Hertha BSC told Raphaël Guerreiro something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match6 Mar 2027
15 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Suat Serdar commits to Hertha BSC for another 4 years.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Hertha BSC know it.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A last season at home is what John Brooks is after
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
7.85, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Hertha BSC had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Lars Walter could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market15 Feb 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match13 Feb 2027
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Fabian Reese and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad15 Feb 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Hertha BSC know it.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Hertha BSC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julian Hettwer is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match13 Feb 2027
A 1‑1 draw with Nürnberg leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Lars Walter after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad18 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Josip Brekalo
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hertha BSC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match16 Jan 2027
Schalke 04 will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Hertha BSC were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Hertha BSC and SC Freiburg have settled on $3.8M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Market18 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market18 Jan 2027
The chase for Julian Hettwer ended with $5.0M changing hands and Fortuna Düsseldorf out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Hertha BSC asked and FC Augsburg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
$4.3M was the most the club would pay and SC Paderborn were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Hertha BSC have gone to Borussia Mönchengladbach with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market21 Dec 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hertha BSC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad21 Dec 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match19 Dec 2026
Nobody wants to play Hertha BSC right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Match19 Dec 2026
Holstein Kiel made Hertha BSC work for it, but the scoreboard read 4‑3 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Match19 Dec 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Hertha BSC and Holstein Kiel, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.71, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The terraces21 Dec 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 2026
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match18 Nov 2026
A 1‑1 win over FC Augsburg, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match21 Nov 2026
Still nobody has beaten Hertha BSC
The unbeaten run reaches 11. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Market23 Nov 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hertha BSC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Suat Serdar and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The terraces23 Nov 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match21 Nov 2026
Late, late show earns Hertha BSC a point
Minute 88, against Dynamo Dresden, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Match18 Nov 2026
A goal on 87 minutes turned three points into one and a good afternoon into an argument about game management that will run until Saturday.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Julian Eitschberger and Hertha BSC agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad16 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hertha BSC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad16 Nov 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Márton Dárdai and Hertha BSC agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
A promise honoured for Suat Serdar
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Hertha BSC told Suat Serdar something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Market16 Nov 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Marius Gersbeck has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Hertha BSC.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Dynamo Dresden next, and one man in the Hertha BSC dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Michał Karbownik has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Market16 Nov 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Michaël Cuisance may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A brace, and Dawid Kownacki takes the afternoon — 9.00
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dawid Kownacki provided it, and the 9.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market26 Oct 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hertha BSC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match24 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Hertha BSC
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Hertha BSC know it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Oct 2026
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match17 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Hertha BSC
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad19 Oct 2026
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Match17 Oct 2026
4 matches without defeat, and then Eintracht Braunschweig. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Hertha BSC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tjark Ernst is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
7.60, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Hertha BSC had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Half-satisfied: Lars Walter on the draw
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market28 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hertha BSC can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Up for the corner, and Michaël Cuisance delivers — 7.83
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Michaël Cuisance scored, was marked 7.83, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Match26 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Hertha BSC have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jefferson Cardona and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match26 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Suat Serdar. 3‑2 against Darmstadt 98, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Appearance number 200 for Fabian Reese
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 8.14 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Lars Walter, on a 3‑2 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match19 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over SV Elversberg, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.85. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Suat Serdar beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Lars Walter could afford to be generous.
Market21 Sep 2026
No place for Dion Ajvazi in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Dion Ajvazi has his answer from Hertha BSC; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market21 Sep 2026
The name of Jefferson Cardona keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Hertha BSC say nothing, which says plenty.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
12 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Hertha BSC would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market14 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hertha BSC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match12 Sep 2026
VfL Bochum made Hertha BSC work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Hertha BSC
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Michaël Cuisance was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I did not go to Heidenheim to sit and watch. I want to come back to Hertha BSC and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Lars Walter on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Looking ahead14 Sep 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against SV Elversberg in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Squad14 Sep 2026
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Hertha BSC has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Nürnberg wanted more than $7.5M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Market31 Aug 2026
The chase for Jonas Adjetey ended with $5.1M changing hands and VfL Wolfsburg out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Hertha BSC asked and VfL Wolfsburg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Jonas Adjetey from VfL Wolfsburg for $5.1M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Fabian Reese beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jón Dagur Þorsteinsson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Tjark Ernst
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Hertha BSC have gone to VfB Stuttgart with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The offer went to VfB Stuttgart this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The offer went to Cortulua this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. TSG Hoffenheim have kept their man, and Hertha BSC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Josip Brekalo and Hertha BSC agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Market3 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Michaël Cuisance wants continental football; whether Hertha BSC can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Fabian Reese and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.