At least Hoffenheim were able to hit back and keep Stuttgart at bay. That was the positive realization of this strange game, which was reminiscent of so many previous fickle Hoffenheim. Not just this season.
Hoffenheim’s captain Oliver Baumann urges caution.
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“Groundhog Day” is how coach André Breitenreiter described the sad fact that his team suddenly lost the thread in the 2-2 win against Stuttgart and gave up a supposedly controlled, superior game without needing to. Even more blatant than on Saturday at Union Berlin (1: 3). “We got back into the game very well, you could clearly feel how determined the team was to win this game. The tactical plan worked out perfectly, that was really good,” the 49-year-old rightly felt The team was deservedly in the lead. “Until we lose the ball slightly and concede 1-1 out of nowhere,” said Breitenreiter, “at the moment that leads to uncertainty.”
We are not blind, we have to be very vigilant, but in the end we decide that all by ourselves.
And the resulting negative series with only one win in the last eleven games leads TSG into uncomfortable table regions. Instead of the targeted upper, Hoffenheim finishes the first half of the season in the lower third. But in the relegation battle, the Kraichgauers see themselves consistently not arrived, this word was also dribbled around on Tuesday. “We didn’t get enough points for the performances we showed, even on Saturday and Tuesday,” said Breitenreiter. “We’re not blind, we have to be very vigilant, but in the end we decide that all by ourselves.”
The veterans Sebastian Rudy and Oliver Baumann also avoided the signal word. “We’re not that far yet. Of course we’re not doing well in the table, we know that, but now the first half of the season is over,” said Rudy reassured, “we have to step it up a notch, everyone knows that, we need points.”
“We have to be careful. It’s paper thin”
Captain Oliver Baumann also avoided the term. “I’m not going to say that word after the half-series because I resist it,” said the TSG goalkeeper, “but we have to be careful. It’s wafer-thin, we have to do everything we can to make sure we don’t slip in completely. We’re in there. We have to get our playing class more on the pitch.”
Which is obviously difficult at the moment. “For some time now we’ve just not been able to appear stable, to be tough in appropriate situations,” Baumann acknowledges, “I don’t know why we’re not getting there, but we have to do it again quickly.”
According to Breitenreiter, his team is currently being thrown off course too easily, but he still recognized progress: “This time the boys followed up with action, even if the mistakes were the same. We simply gave away both goals we conceded, the opponent wasn’t there for 40 minutes sometimes close to our goal. But it rings immediately because we just lost the ball,” said Breitenreiter, “then it will always be difficult to win a game, but this time the boys didn’t give up and believed in it until the end, to turn things around.” The next home game against Gladbach on Saturday will show whether that was a step back to the old security in the game.
