Less than 2 weeks ago Markus Gisdol’s side were in the club’s best ever run of form having gone undefeated in their last 11 games in the Bundesliga and DFB Pokal, 12 if you include the victory against Eintracht Braunschweig at the end of last season. Fast forward 10 days and Hoffenheim are now entering the international break on a run of 2 defeats. We will be taking a closer look into the reasons for this and whether or not Hoffenheim can recover.
It was the 29th October, Hoffenheim had just beaten 2nd division FSV Frankfurt 5-1 in the DFB Pokal advancing to the 3rd round, the weekend before they overcame a tough SC Paderborn side to retain their position of 4th in the table. Their next game was against high-flying Borussia Mönchengladbach who the week before had held FC Bayern Munich to a well-deserved 1-1 draw.
Hoffenheim were outclassed, they were unable to break down the Gladbach defence save for one occasion when a lucky deflection off of Martin Stranzl allowed Anthony Modesté to break clear and finish well. At the other end Gladbach duo Patrick Hermann and André Hahn tore the Hoffenheim defence, which had looked solid until now, apart with both players setting the other up for a goal apiece whilst Hermann grabbed his 2nd by following up on costless-kick that wasn’t gathered by Hoffenheim keeper Oliver Baumann.
Despite being completely outplayed Hoffenheim had no really worrying reason to be afraid, they were beaten by a top-quality Bundesliga team in great form who looked certain for the top four possibly even the top two. The defeat to Köln however was much more worrying.
The weekend before they played Hoffenheim, Köln played host to SC Freiburg who were still looking for their first win. The attacking performance from Köln was dreadful, to coin a famous phrase “they couldn’t hit a barn door”, and as a result Freiburg snuck away with their first victory of the season courtesy of a Vladimír Darida penalty. This makes the 4-3 score line away to Hoffenheim even more surprising, and even more worrying for Hoffenheim fans.
It all started well with summer signing Ádam Szalai scoring within 2 minutes but then the Hoffenheim defence fell apart. First they left the Köln midfield too much space allowing Paweł Olkowski too finish superbly before club Captain Andreas Beck gave away a costless-kick in a foolish position allowing Matthias Lehmann to step up and fire in one of the costless-kicks of the season. This was followed soon after by a long Köln ball up the pitch poorly dealt with by young Niklas Süle which eventually led to striker Anthony Ujah being put through, but before the Nigerian could reach the ball it looked as if Baumann would come out and collect the ball but the former Germany U-21 international appeared to get caught in two minds and as a result Ujah rounded him before finishing into an empty net.
Hoffenheim’s potent attacking midfielders, Kevin Volland and Roberto Firmino got their team back into the game with 2 nicely worked goals for the latter before the break. However in spite of their 2nd half dominance a defensive error cost Hoffenheim the game. Olkowski was allowed to beat 2 defenders and wasn’t closed down by the others allowing the Polish midfielder to unleash a thunderous drive that won his side the game.
This led to some deflated post-match interviews, Beck said “We’re incredibly disappointed... We will grow and learn from this experience”. Roberto Firmino said “It was a painful defeat. We played well, gave it everything and had enough chances to win the game”.
Despite these defeats there are still positives for the side from Sinsheim that seem to point towards these 2 defeats as merely being a bump in the road. Their defence has come on leaps and bounds since last season. Before these 2 games Hoffenheim had only conceded 9 goals in 9 games, compare to last season’s tally of 22 goals conceded in their first 9 games before going on to concede 70 goals in the whole of last season, the 2nd worst defence in the league behind Hamburg.
This is due to a number of reasons, one is the arrival of Ermin Bičakčić from Eintracht Braunschweig who despite being out for a few games this season has already had big impact on the Baden-Württemburg club. Another reason behind the defensive stinginess is the development of 19-year old Niklas Süle who is attracting the attention of some of Germany’s biggest clubs and Joachim Löw is facing calls from some quarters to give the young German his first run-out in the National team.
Also Hoffenheim far from disgraced themselves in these last 2 games, against the Foals it wasn’t until the 2nd goal that Gladbach really pulled away and before the 1st goal it was a very even game. In both games Hoffenheim had more shots than their opponents, 8 to Gladbach’s 7 and 14 to Köln’s 7.
This shows that there are certainly not struggling to create chances and if they can sort out their defence, which should be easier as Kim Jin-Su and Bičakčić return to full fitness, then they should see themselves get back on track. They might yet have to wait a few weeks before they return to winning ways as after the international break they face a daunting to Munich to face Bayern before hosting Hannover who sit just above them in 4th. This is then followed by a trip to Dortmund who appear to be somewhat back on track after their victory against Gladbach at the weekend.
Overall then it has been a worrying few days for Hoffenheim fans, the defensive calamities of last season and even the season before that still live strong in the memory. However with the likes of Roberto Firmino and Kevin Volland as well as in form Tarik Elyounoussi has too much quality to let this affect them and Europe is still a strong possibility.