20th matchday
Hoffenheim remains weak even under Matarazzo
Leverkusen’s goal scorer Robert Andrich (3rd from right) cheers with teammates. photo
© Uwe Anspach/dpa
Even a change of coach does not ensure a quick turnaround at the crisis club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim. The team has been waiting for a win since mid-October.
Only two days after the extremely warm welcome from the new coach Pellegrino Matarazzo, disillusionment has set in at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim – almost horror.
The 45-year-old successor to André Breitenreiter, who was on leave, experienced a bitter debut for TSG in the Bundesliga: In the 1: 3 (0: 1) against Bayer Leverkusen, the Kraichgauer acted like a relegated team for a long time. The streak of games without a win rose to ten.
Partly “bad”: Hoffenheim like a relegated team
“Obviously I was hoping that we’d be more relaxed about the game,” admitted Matarazo. “But that’s not a problem. Next week we’ll roll up our sleeves and get to work.” Already on Friday the crisis club is going to FC Augsburg – who recently defeated Leverkusen.
“The first 60 minutes were terrible,” admitted new signing Thomas Delaney. The 31-year-old former native of Bremen and Dortmund had a long discussion with Matarazzo on the pitch and then demanded: “It’s time we were a little more honest with each other.” And: “It’s not possible in five minutes where you have your head under your arm. We have to be extremely attentive.”
Matarazzo wants to build on the closing stages
Because in the table, the former European Cup aspirant is further than table 14. equal on points with VfL Bochum. Four months after leaving VfB Stuttgart, Matarazzo now has a very difficult task ahead of him. In the end he was “happy and a bit grateful” that his team had a reasonable phase at least in the final phase: “It was only from the 65th minute that we started playing a certain kind of football, where you say: Okay, we can do that build up.”
In front of just 20,619 spectators, Robert Andrich (6th minute), Moussa Diaby (47th) with his seventh goal of the season and Adam Hlozek (56th) scored the goals for a sovereign Bayer team. The Leverkusen team celebrated their first win in the second half of the season – just in time for the Europa League game against AS Monaco on Thursday. Stanley Nsoki shortened to 1: 3 (77th).
Coach calls for more stability on the defensive
On Thursday, Hoffenheim welcomed the new head coach full of hope, very popular as Julian Nagelsmann’s former assistant and an old acquaintance in the club. Now the new head coach, sports director Alexander Rosen, the fans and probably above all the players were left with the realization that the relegation battle will not be over so quickly.
“We can stabilize quickly and make our way up,” Matarazzo said to Sky immediately before kick-off and demanded: “Everyone should go ahead!” But TSG had too many absentees like Ihlas Bebou, Dennis Geiger and Angeliño. The offensive forces Andrej Kramaric and Christoph Baumgartner rubbed themselves off in vain. At the back, the new defense chief John Brooks and his teammates fell from one embarrassment to the next. After a 1:4 against Mönchengladbach and a 2:5 in Bochum still under Breitenreiter, the next heavy setback came.
The fact that the players had also sat down internally makes Matarazzo “very optimistic”. But the team will not get out of there with a fight alone: ”We need a defensive game and stability, where we allow fewer chances to score, and at the same time play football. We are not a knocker team.”