2-0 loss in Berlin

FC Augsburg lost to Hertha BSC Berlin by a scoreline of 2-0 to round off the end of this week's hectic fixture schedule. The goals from the capital city club came from John Anthony Brooks (12') and Valentin Stocker (37') in the first-half. Christoph Janker, Georg Teigl, Philipp Max, Dominik Kohr and Dong-Won Ji were new additions to the starting line-up from Wednesday's game against Ingolstadt. Martin Hinteregger was replaced on account of his suspension for accumulating five yellow cards, whilst Gojko Kacar and Konstantinos Stafylidis suffered from back and hamstring issues respectively. Jan Moravek sat out due to some trouble with his foot, and Alfred Finnbogason began on the bench. However, Raul Bobadilla tweaked his calf in the warm-ups, meaning Finnbogason was recalled to assume his starting role up top. Jan-Ingwer Callsen-Bracker took the Iceland international's place on the bench. There was reason for Paul Verhaegh to celebrate in Berlin, as the captain participated in his 150th Bundesliga game. It was also a special game for Christoph Janker, who started against his former employers. On the other side of the pitch, Sebastian Langkamp and Alexander Esswein were two former FCA players now in Berlin colours. Hertha began the game intent on scoring in front of their home crowd early on, meaning that the guests from Swabia started off on the defensive. A corner from Marvin Plattenhardt was met the head of Salomon Kalou, whose header was blocked, but Valentin Stocker struck the rebound from distance before the ball hit John Anthony Brooks' head and went in from seven metres out (12'). Hitz was tested by Plattenhardt's 35 metre free-kick, but the Swiss goalkeeper was not greatly troubled by the effort (16'). Hitz parried Ibisevic's shot in the 20th minute to keep his side in the game. It took half an hour for Augsburg to get a shot off in Hertha's penalty, when Kevin Danso had a shot following a free-kick, but Rune Jarstein was equal to it (33'). The hosts' second goal came after Ibisevic played Kalou through, and the man from the Ivory Coast unselfishly squared for Valentin Stocker to give their side the lead after 37 minutes. There were similar scenes after the second-half to the first, as Peter Pekarik's double chance failed to come to anything for Berlin. Again, Hitz parried a Plattenahrdt free-kick six minutes later, but this time, Augsburg actually created a dangerous chance of their own: Finnbogason latched onto a cross from the left-hand side, but his effort went wide (63'). Ibisevic had a very good opportunity to put the game out of reach for Augsburg, but he couldn't keep his powerful shot on target, despite having plenty of time to do so (66'). Hertha were dominant as chances followed for Darida (70'), Plattenhardt (83'), and Kalou (90+2'), before the referee blew the whistle to signal that it was the end of the match. FCA will return having collected no points from their trip to the capital.