As a reason for the extension, he also gave the previous season, in which the Berliners had only held their class in the relegation against Hamburger SV. “The last year was too turbulent,” he said, “a lot of action, negative headlines. I couldn’t stop like that.”
He wants to interpret his role exactly as he did last time. Boateng, who made the leap to professionalism at Hertha in 2005, sees it as his job “to help, to be there, to be the dad of the young guys. And then hopefully to show on the pitch what I showed against Hamburg Or a few games before that.”