Hannover 96 jumped to fourth place in the Bundesliga Friday night with a 2-0 win at Hertha BSC Berlin thanks to a 43rd minute goal from Jimmy Briand and a second half strike from Hiroshi Kiyotake.
After another disappointing performance from an attack lacking creativity, Hertha remained 13th, losing for the third time in four starts while continuing to flirt with the wrong end of the table.
Briand broke the deadlock with his first Bundesliga goal just before the interval. The former Olympique Lyon danger man beat Marvin Plattehardt to Kiyotake's long corner some 10 yards out. Although under some pressure, Briand made room to swivel and first-time the ball into the top right corner in the 43rd minute.
Briand's goal came just two minutes after he had beaten the offside trap to collect a good through pass after beating Johnny Heitinga only to strike the reasonable chance well over the bar.
Hannover thought they had a second in the 53rd minute when Leonardo Bittencourt collected a deflection off defender John Anthony Brooks and slid a pass to the wide-open Kiyotake for the finish. After consultation with his assistant, referee Peter Sippel ruled that Bittencourt's original offside position nullified the goal.
Bittencourt and Kiyotake did combine successfully some 23 minutes later. When Plattenhardt failed to handle a simple pass on his halfway line, Bittencourt alertly picked his pocket and sent the scorer away. Kiyotake collected the pass, stepped inside the final defender and struck from the top of the box. That was a fair reward for Kiyotake, whose performance on the night was one of Hannover's best.
The best that a disjointed Hertha attack could provide the home fans was the occasional raid against a defense that remained tight, but their inability to sustain useful possession meant that Hannover remained on the front foot much of the time.
Saturday's program is headed by Bayern Munich's afternoon visit to Eintracht Frankfurt where a 51,000 sellout attendance is expected to snarl traffic thanks to a German rail strike. The defending champions could open a seven-point gap atop the table with a victory since both VfL Wolfsburg and Borussia Moenchengladbach, their closest challengers, don't play until Sunday.
