TSG Hoffenheim have gone to Bayer Leverkusen with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
TSG Hoffenheim have gone to Hamburger SV with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and TSG Hoffenheim have had the benefit of it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at TSG Hoffenheim heard it as anything else.
The name of Alexander Prass has come up in conversations TSG Hoffenheim were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at TSG Hoffenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bayern Munich left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at TSG Hoffenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Wimmer is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Position 3, 36 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Martin Walter left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at TSG Hoffenheim will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Nathan De Cat
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at TSG Hoffenheim hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Oliver Baumann was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Martin Walter after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Cole Campbell falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
In brief
The dugoutFlorian Kainz dropped after a run of poor form
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Andrej Kramarić provided it, and the 8.42 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Adam Daghim did not need any: 7.91, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at TSG Hoffenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrej Kramarić. 2‑0 against Eintracht Frankfurt, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Wimmer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Martin Walter, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Oliver Baumann and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Leon Brandt has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Fábio Silva was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
With 6 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Martin Walter could afford to be generous.
Oliver Baumann was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Wimmer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
9 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Bernardo has come out of that comparison in the side, and TSG Hoffenheim have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Max Moerstedt