A longtime Bundesliga coach, the late Ernst Happel, once told his players, ''If you start thinking, you're out of here.''
Hertha Berlin general manager Dieter Hoeness takes a different apporach. In the wake of a German Cup ouster to a Third Division club and a couple of poor performances in December, he told his players to spend the holiday break writing an essay on ''What Hertha means to me'' and ''What I can do to improve the team.''
While the German media took mocking delight in imagining pro players putting pen to paper – ''Welcome to Hertha School,'' wrote BZ – Hoeness defended the idea — ''It's a good thing when players are asked to think about their jobs in their free time'' — and was upset that the assignment had become public.
''Perhaps one or two of the players haven't written an essay in so long that they turned to journalists for help,'' he said.
When training resumed on Jan. 3, all but two players arrived with their papers in hand.