Marked for Tiago Poller
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout2 Jul 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Robert Moreau 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.
Squad2 Jul 2029
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad2 Jul 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vladimír Coufal and TSG Hoffenheim agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Bryan Zaragoza 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.
The dugout2 Jul 2029
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market2 Jul 2029
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
TSG Hoffenheim sign 8 boys into the academy
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Mar 2028
A fracture rules Andrej Kramarić out for 38 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason TSG Hoffenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match4 Mar 2028
Fisnik Asllani wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Fisnik Asllani found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Heidenheim went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad6 Mar 2028
13 seasons and 608 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Lennart Karl, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.16
A mark of 8.16 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market6 Mar 2028
“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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Éderson wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at TSG Hoffenheim can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Bernardo and TSG Hoffenheim agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match4 Mar 2028
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation TSG Hoffenheim did not have in the autumn.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Jan 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 80 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Transfer targets31 Jan 2028
TSG Hoffenheim offered $18.6M; Bayern Munich said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Market31 Jan 2028
The fee is $7.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Hamburger SV drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Market31 Jan 2028
The offer from Köln for Tiago Poller was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets31 Jan 2028
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Eintracht Frankfurt is saying, and nobody at TSG Hoffenheim is enjoying the guessing.
Match29 Jan 2028
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad31 Jan 2028
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.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 15 actions, 7.13, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Market31 Jan 2028
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout22 Nov 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” TSG Hoffenheim may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market22 Nov 2027
Éderson wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Oliver Baumann and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match20 Nov 2027
After 8 games, TSG Hoffenheim finally taste it again
The first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against VfL Wolfsburg; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Éderson 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.
Match20 Nov 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Ozan Kabak gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.