Unlike Kuranyi's 'sacking', Hertha's rise to the top is no joke

Lucien Favre's minimalist side have mystified the pundits by becoming the Bundesliga's latest leaders
Andriy Voronin
Hertha Berlin's Andriy Voronin celebrates one of his goals that beat Bayern Munich. Photograph: Christian Charisius/REUTERS

Wednesday night in Düsseldorf's LTU Arena, and Germany are so shockingly feeble in their friendly against Norway that everybody is instantly transported back to the Erich Ribbeck era: the dark, dark days of Carsten Jancker and Euro 2000. Then, suddenly, the assembled hacks in the press box become very excited. They're being told that Kevin Kuranyi has just been sacked by Schalke 04. "After Kevin's public and unacceptable criticism of the team, the club was forced to terminate his contract," a statement reads on the official S04 website. "[Schalke had to] protect the integrity of the team and make sure that the atmosphere in the club wouldn't be strained any further. We are losing a great player who leaves a big hole behind."

Bild and a few more gullible media websites ran the story, but then it quickly transpired it was a classic internet hoax: unknown individuals had managed to hack into the club's website and post the false article. You may well laugh, but really, it's a very cruel, heartless joke. Imagine, say, you're an Arsenal fan and you read that Arsène Wenger has bought a decent centre-back on the Gunners' website, only for the news to be revealed as a prank. It's just not right to trample all over people's hopes and aspirations in that underhand manner.

Three days later, Kuranyi was still very much employed and back in action away to Bochum in the "small Ruhrderby", and the travelling Royal Blues faithful did well to hide their disappointment, even getting behind their maddeningly inconsistent striker in a rare show of solidarity. The 26-year-old duly pounced on a loose ball to give his side the lead, but then Schalke remembered their true calling and fell apart in their unique way. After Bochum's 2–1 win, the manager Fred Rutten and the sporting director Andreas Müller will need a win over arch-rivals Dortmund on Friday night in the proper Ruhrderby to save their necks. A real dilemma for Borussia, this. Could they, for once, mischievously be tempted to let their rivals win in order to prolong their misery, in a "better the dilettantes you know" style scenario?

Meanwhile, Leverkusen battered Hoffenheim 4–1 in the Rhein Neckar Arena, Hannover and Stuttgart were both puzzled about the relative merits of a 3–3 draw and Hertha pulled off the biggest coup of the season: "the old dame" of German football threw away her Zimmer frame and leapt all the way to the top of the table following the 2–1 win over a pretty abject Bayern Munich. Lucien Favre's young, depleted side did it in their usual fashion, a modicum of possession, chances and fuss the order of the day. Their attritional style and minimalist results – nine out of 12 wins have been by a single-goal margin – have kept them off the radar for most of the campaign, but they're now the pace-setters with only 14 matches to go for the first time in their Bundesliga history. In 27 years in the elite division, they've never before been top in the second half of a season.

A quick scan of the papers demonstrates that most experts are still mystified by this team. When Favre took over 18 months ago, they were a laughing stock and widely tipped to be relegation fodder. A tenth-placed finish in May hardly set the pulses of the notoriously hard-to-please Berliners racing, but a few excellent manoeuvres in the transfer market and some coolly efficient wins have earned the neutrals' respect, if not exactly adulation. The local broadsheet, Tagesspiegel, which has been swooning over Hertha's unexpected progress all season, labelled them "heroes of the system" and emphasised the power of a collective ambition. "Their counter-attacks don't rely on ideas, they follow a strict plan," it wrote. "Moves (like the one that lead to Andriy Voronin's winning goal) can be practised, and Hertha do practise them, all the time." Good luck and coincidence play much less of a role than most people thought, the paper's experts insisted.

It's certainly evident that a little cynicism and defensive rigidity go a long way in a league that has been high on an endless of supply of carefree attacking football of late. "Simply top" was Kicker magazine's headline on Monday. A nice pun, for simplicity is indeed the key. Hertha's struggles against lesser teams who sit even deeper than they do have exposed the limitations of their counter-revolutionary approach, but who's to say they won't be taking a few more risks in future weeks now they have reached the summit?

Voronin, on-loan from Liverpool, wants to go back to Anfield with a winner's medal and has started talking up Hertha's chances. Suits in the Berlin municipality have confirmed a suitable balcony would be available for championship celebrations. The general manager, Dieter Hoeness – "four, five teams have more individual quality in their squads"– and Favre are understandably more cautious. "The championship is not possible, normally," said the Swiss football professor. "But then, what's normal in this season of surprises that sees Hoffenheim become autumn champions and big, traditional clubs lose their Champions League subscription?" countered Süddeutsche Zeitung.

With six teams still in the running for the Meisterschaft, Germany can certainly boast the most open title race in Europe right now. Great for everyone concerned, but a little unnerving as well. The fact that Hertha, the side who were unceremoniously dumped out of the Uefa Cup group stage by Metalist Kharkiv, Galatasaray, Olympiakos and Sporting Lisbon, are top of the table can only fuel German Fussball-Angst. Maybe it's all the fault of Jürgen Klinsmann's defensively shambolic Bayern, who are to the league what the rigorous bouncers are to Munich's famous "P1" disco: when they're not on their game, the riff-raff get in.

Results: Hoffenheim 1–4 Leverkusen; Hertha 2–1 Bayern; Bochum 2–1 Schalke; Frankfurt 0–2 Wolfsburg; Werder Bremen 1–1 Gladbach; Köln 0–0 Karlsruhe; Hannover 3–3 Stuttgart; Dortmund 1–1 Cottbus; Hamburg 2–0 Bielefeld.

Latest Bundesliga table