Marked for Stephan Thomas
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Apr 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Stephan Thomas
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. TSG Hoffenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout30 Apr 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.
Squad30 Apr 2029
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.
Match28 Apr 2029
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around TSG Hoffenheim are no longer polite ones.
Squad30 Apr 2029
11 goals and a season average of 7.39. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match28 Apr 2029
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
Bernardo 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.
Match28 Apr 2029
TSG Hoffenheim are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Player ratings30 Apr 2029
Marked 8.20 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Apr 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Stephan Thomas
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. TSG Hoffenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad23 Apr 2029
Mason Greenwood 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.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
“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.
Match21 Apr 2029
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Markus Hofmann to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout23 Apr 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.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Charlie Hughes will call it something else in private.
Loan watch23 Apr 2029
Luca Philipp’s loan is measured in nothing happening
9 clean sheets from 14 appearances at Kaiserslautern. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Market23 Apr 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Tim Lemperle’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Apr 2029
Stephan Thomas damages knee ligaments — 34 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 34 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match14 Apr 2029
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. VfB Stuttgart kept coming because nothing stopped them, and TSG Hoffenheim will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Player ratings16 Apr 2029
Both of them Can Uzun's — 8.46
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.46, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match14 Apr 2029
Beaten 3‑4, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad16 Apr 2029
A season average of 7.39 with 10 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Boardroom16 Apr 2029
SV Elversberg will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Alam Garcete has pre-agreed a move to TSG Hoffenheim, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The terraces16 Apr 2029
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Can Uzun has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Loan watch16 Apr 2029
Nahuel Noll’s loan is measured in nothing happening
14 clean sheets from 29 appearances at Heidenheim. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Mohamed Alì Zoma 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Apr 2029
41 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. TSG Hoffenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market9 Apr 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what TSG Hoffenheim can pretend not to have heard.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Mason Greenwood and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match7 Apr 2029
Tim Lemperle scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to FC Augsburg, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Loan watch9 Apr 2029
“I did not go to Union Berlin to sit and watch. I want to come back to TSG Hoffenheim and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
Umut Tohumcu left out for the big one
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Umut Tohumcu will call it something else in private.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Vladimír Coufal is on it.
The terraces9 Apr 2029
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.