Gbig game, big fight, big sport. This Bundesliga top game had everything that characterizes football on its best days. There was only one winner between TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and class leaders FC Bayern Munich. In the end, fourth-placed was satisfied with the 1-1 after goals from Christoph Baumgartner (32nd minute) and the 29th goal of the season from the world’s best striker Robert Lewandowski. But not the champion and first in the table because of a dominant second half.
On the other hand, the aesthetic value of this encounter, which is well worth seeing, was so high that the Munich captain, Manuel Neuer, was lenient about the draw. “It was a really nice game for the neutral spectator. But we had a few more chances. In the end it’s a bit disappointing that we don’t go home with three points.
If we’d played two halves like the second here, we’d win the game.” David Raum, on the other hand, the left winger at TSG, rated the duel between challenger and defending champion with great satisfaction as “the absolute highlight of the Bundesliga. We are brave, we are Hoffenheim, we play at home here. That’s how we wanted to play the game.” What TSG did completely in the first half and in phases in the second.
Twice wide chest, together make a game worth seeing. TSG, recently victorious four times in a row in the Bundesliga, was full of confidence looking forward to the biggest possible opponent in this country. Coach Sebastian Hoeneß, who led the second team of the glorious FC Bayern to the championship in the third division before his first first division engagement, was very Bayern-like optimistic. “This is a game where you have little to lose as long as you are extremely brave. That’s what we intend to do.”
His Munich colleague Julian Nagelsmann, who in his nine years at TSG (2010 to 2019) has matured from a successful youth coach to a successful first division coach, was looking forward to returning to “German Tuscany”, to the club that shaped him. All the more so after the 7-1 triumph on Tuesday evening in the second leg of the Champions League over RB Salzburg.
“A very important game,” emphasized Nagelsmann before the Bundesliga top game of this 26th match day, “it would be strange if it hadn’t been good for our self-confidence.” In addition, the 34-year-old Bavarian, who coached RB Leipzig at the time, was there FCB’s 4-1 defeat at TSG to Hoeneß’ debut on September 27, 2020, when the current national coach and then Bayern coach Hansi Flick was still leading Bayern Munich.
Cheers even before kick-off
stories of yesterday. The here and now counted and contained a course of the game that could hardly have been faster and more high-class. The Hoffenheim fans among the 25,600 spectators in the Sinsheimer Arena, which was sold out under the current Corona regulations, cheered even before kick-off when the breaking news announced on the scoreboard that the contract with TSG record scorer Andrej Kramaric had been extended.
The Croatian national player (“Thank you for the wonderful six years, the journey continues”), whose old contract would have expired at the end of this season, will stay until June 30, 2025. The eleventh recent contract extension by Alexander Rosen, who Hoffenheim director of professional football, accomplished this season.
