1899 Hoffenheim Preview

1899 Hoffenheim

Coach: Ralf Rangnick

Ralf Rangnick took over Hoffenheim in "Regionalliga" and run through the leagues until he finally reached 1.Bundesliga.

The important aspects that a player has to bring with him when he wants to play under Rangnick are discipline and the will to improve. When looking for new players he also considers the social aspects, like how does the player behave - what does he do when he is not training/playing e.g.

His plan worked quite amazing, in the first half of the season the whole world got to know who is Hoffenheim. Unbelievable offensive football catched all the attention and they looked quite unstoppable for a while.

Rangnick did a good job obviously, though his team had some problems in the second half of the season. But that's normal with that average age of the players and a few important injuries.

This year Rangnick wants to show again good offensive football and we as observer hope they can be successful playing offensive so that we see some interesting matches.

Money spend for transfers: 16.100.000
Money earned from transfers: 25.000 €

Balance: -16.075.000 €

Atmosphere during training camp&test matches:

A few young transfers should bring some fresh wind into the team.
The fact that Ibisevic is back after his long injury made a lot of players and fans happy. He is also scoring already as in good old times.

The test matches were not that convincing yet. Against Fenerbahce they won, but they were losing 0:1 and just score two goals after Fenerbahce changed 6 players plus in both situations the goalkeeper made mistakes so that Hoffenheim won 2:1 at the end.
Against Getafe they lost as well, but soon Demba Ba should be back who got criticised because he was tending to transfer to Stuttgart.

The coach said that Ba is training very hard to excuse his way.

Possible line-ups & tactics:












Most likely:
1. 4-3-3; LB,CB,CB,RB,CM,LCM,RCM,ST,ST,ST

Aim set by club:

Play offensive football, but to be also able to stay on a single-digit positions. A few players said they want to win the title as well.

Team check:

Goalkeeper: 7/10

Timo Hildebrand is a good goalkeeper. When we remember back to his time in Stuttgart he was even mentioned to be the new number one in Germanys goal.
After trying his luck in Spain he moved back to Bundesliga and signed for Hoffenheim.
Last season he was not as good as he could be but I think he will improve the more he will play.

Reserve keeper is Daniel Haas who got a few chances in goal as well. He is good too, but both are far away from best goalkeepers yet.

Defence: 7/10

With Christian Eichner Hoffenheim signed a very good left back. At least in my opinion he is a very good guy who will fit into this team. You can compare him with Schäfer from Wolfsburg a bit, they both play quite similar.

Right back is Beck for sure who gains more and more experience on his position.

Centre back position got additional strength with Simunic coming from Hertha Berlin to Hoffenheim.
Most likely Simunic and Compper will play here. Backups are Jaissle, Nilsson and even Vorsah can play on this position.

Last season they conceded quite some goals but with Eichner and Simunic they made a big step in improving their defence which I did not considered as good last season.

Midfield: 9/10

Who will play in the midfield. Well it is a question of the system. If they will stick to 4-3-3 then we will Salihovic and Eduardo on left/right centre midfield position.
As the only real defensive midfield player Luiz Gustavo would play a bit behind Sali and Eduardo.


All three are very skilled players, each on their own way.
As a backup for Luiz Gustavo Hoffenheim bought the young Zucilini "a real fighter who wants the ball for 90 minutes" (quotation from Compper)-
In order to have some alternatives for Salihovic and Eduardo Maicosuel was bought.
He is described to be the sprinter type who loves to run fast and owns a good ball control.

Together with Tobias Weiß, who played a lot last season but who will sit on bench at the beginning, they hold a strong midfield which is very offensive minded.

Striker: 9/10

First good message.
Ibisevic is back and he already scored some goals in test matches. A lot of people were shocked when he got that bad injury and had to watch his team mates for half a season.

Chinedu Obasi is another striker, small, fast and with a good shot he was already able to show his skills in test matches.

Demba Ba was almost in Stuttgart but his small injury killed Stuttgart's interest on him and he will stay in Hoffenheim. The whole transfer rumours did not make him popular but "he already works very hard. Demba Ba is not stupid he knows what to do now" (quotation from coach Rangnick).

Those three strikers are very very good especially when they play together many teams get problems.

As backups for those strikers Hoffenheim has Terrazzino who played some good test matches and Prince Tagoe whom I cannot rate that much.

All in all three very good strikers with one good backup I would say. One problem is that Ba and Obasi tend to be injured from time to time as Obasi is at the moment with his shoulder problems. If one of the first strikers are off they lose some quality really and that may cost important points during the long season.

Total: 8/10

My prognosis:

Ralf Rangnick says that their aim is to be under top 10 and to play good offensive football again. He says that it would be wrong to set a fixed position as aim.

Well I have to agree with him. During my researches and especially when I had to rate the team parts many teams ended up with similar points and that is really the fact this season. A lot of teams who own a good line-up.

Hoffenheim could hold all important players and add some more quality and they should be able to get under top 10 for sure. I expect them to be close to 5^th position.