analysis
After the 0: 4 debacle at home against Union Berlin, the situation of TSG Hoffenheim in the table cellar is worsened. The bad location is also the result of chaotic season preparation.
Hoffenheim these days. These are speechlessness. Stunned. Incorrectness. The 0: 4 debacle at home against the basement competitor Union Berlin really shaked the football Kraichgau.
Even worse than the bare result: the bloodless idea of the protagonists in the ink-blue TSG jerseys, which continues to fuel the relegation of relegation among Hoffenheim fans and those responsible. “Embarrassing,” said, for example, veteran Marius Bülter as honest skin, “so we will not win and descend a game”. You can only agree with him.
No upward trend under Christian Ilzer
Right in the middle of the frustration scenery, a immensely disappointed coach Christian Ilzer, who still hasn’t managed to stop the sporty new year. Just three victories from 16 competitive games have been the meager record of Pellegrino Matarazzo’s successor since November on the Kraichgauer bench. The Matarazzo, who had been criticized for a long time, had been released from ten games after only nine points. The Graz master coach Ilzer had been hired as a great hope from Austria.
Image crisis in the Kraichgau
Similar to the sporting crash, the image values of the village association, which has always not been particularly well suffered in the Bundesliga, fell into the basement through the events in the past six months. For years, observers of the Hoffenheim football scene had been taken with the successful squad planning and the series -based development of young footballers to national players, which in turn were highly passed on to larger clubs.
Trainer Könner such as Ralf Rangnick and later Julian Nagelsmann provided smart ideas, spectacular football and one or two trips through Europe in the Kraichgau. In Hoffenheim, it was possible to work and research without the very great media pressure. Not much is left of it.
Separation from Alexander Rosen as the root of evil?
One who has a significant accompanying and promoting the sports, which has been sporty for a long time, has a significant accompanying and promoted concentration over ten years, is called Alexander Rosen. During this time, the sports manager with the bulky title “Director Professional Ball” became Hoffenheim’s face in public. It is all the more astonishing that the club tour around Mäzen Dietmar Hopp moved more and more from the work of Rosens, the maker, which was promoted to the managing director of Sport, suddenly put in front of the door last summer.
At the end of July, in the middle of the season preparation. The players and the then coach Matarazzo were sometimes initiated in the training camp in Kitzbühel by fans who traveled with them. An ideal season preparation looks different. What happened? Did you live apart? Was the claims in Hoffenheim, after the Nagelsmann years with the Champions League experiences, grew up disproportionate? Probably something of everything.
Club management wanted a sporting change
The time of the rose out and the associated separation from the complete sporting leadership was as surprising from time as it was devastating. The late reasoning of the association at the general meeting in early September: inadequate development, weak scouting, stalling summer transfers, too few spectators. An assessment that Alexander Rosen does not do justice to.
One wanted to carry out a change in sporting leadership: “The views about the future orientation were too different in the end,” said the TSG. Whatever that should have meant in retrospect, it has not been successful. Because the result without roses has been a sporting failure since then. Along with a bird winch on the player market.
Purchase tour for almost 60 million euros in summer
After the separation of roses, under which there were also one or the other wave valley, which for years caused significant added value in the squad and had reached the Europa League in the team with ex-coach Matarazzo at the end of last season, took over young boss Frank Kramer interim planning. Almost every day, seven new players were hired by the end of August. Cost: almost 60 million euros!
So far, very few of them have proven to be reinforcements. Actors such as the at least eight million euro central defender Robin Hranac from the Czech Republic have remained guilty of Bundesliga suitability.
Even in winter new purchases for almost 20 million
There were also in the winter transfer window the new sports manager and rose successor Andreas Schicker (since October) A zealous come and go to finally live up to the preferred pace football of the former Graz colleague and master coach Ilzer. For the two new attackers Gift Orban and Bazoumana Touré – talented boys, but also newcomers in the Bundesliga – were spent on just under 20 million euros.
The bottom line was that TSG Hoffenheim (according to Transfermarkt.de) invested a proud 76 million euros for twelve new professionals this season, including some loan players. The association was more than priority financially, but the yield for this is currently 15th place. At the back (44 goals) like front (26 own hits) does not really fit together.
However, it should not be forgotten that in the long term with Grischa Prömel, Ozan Kabak, Ihlas Bebou and most recently also national goalkeeper Oliver Baumann, supporting the team that cannot be replaced. With striker Maxi Beier and the robust Wout Weghorst, the attack duo also left the TSG before the season.
Lavish squad, no functioning team
In the meantime, 34 (!) Players have already been used in the current round. More than any other club in the Bundesliga. Hoffenheim has a lavish and expensive squad, but also a team that works far too rarely like against Leipzig or Frankfurt. It is not surprising that Andrej Kramaric and Dennis Geiger, two long-term TSG professionals, have now spoken to the TV microphones completely frustrated and that the behavior of the club management has been questioned since last summer. According to the motto: a lot of money for nothing?
The statements may give the bosses in the Kraichgau to think, but by no means ensure the necessary harmony in the shaky team with the numerous new ones. And certainly not for calm in the relegation battle.
Snail race Happiness for TSG in relegation battle?
Fortunately for the TSG that Bochum (11), Kiel (13) and Heidenheim (14 points) deliver a kind of snail race on the last three table. Hoffenheim, with his 18 dots after 21 games, is just over the line as fifteen. Still!
The Bundesliga trip goes to Werder Bremen on Sunday. If the next indisputable appearance follows the Weser, then the hapless Ilzer job could also be considered. It would be the next of the many personnel rochades.
Hoffenheim these days. A picture of the misery. At the latest now, the association has fallen onto the feet of personnel chaos of the season preparation.
Prize on Sun., 9.2.2025 10:05 p.m., SWR Sport, SWR
