Hoffmeister v CITY

CaptureI know nothing about them and I can’t even say I’ve heard their name mentioned in European football in the fifty years I’ve taken an interest in it.  It’s probable that they regularly feature in the Europa League 10th qualifying round, but I may be wrong.  Our current connection is that SAP are one of our sponsors.  Anyway, here’s what Wikipedia says about them.

Formed in 1945, when gymnastics club Turnverein Hoffenheim and Fußballverein Hoffenheim merged. At the beginning of the 1990s, the club was an obscure local amateur side playing in the eighth division Baden-Württemberg A-Liga. They steadily improved and by 1996 were competing in the Verbandsliga Nordbaden (V).  Around 2000, alumnus Dietmar Hopp returned to the club of his youth as a financial backer. Hopp was the co-founder of software firm SAP and he put some of his money into the club. His contributions generated almost immediate results: in 2000 Hoffenheim finished first in the Verbandsliga and was promoted to the fourth-division Oberliga Baden-Württemberg. Another first-place finish moved the club up to the Regionalliga Süd (III) for the 2001–02 season. They finished 13th in their first season in the Regionalliga, but improved significantly the next year, earning a fifth-place result. Hoffenheim earned fifth and seventh-place finishes in the next two seasons, before improving to fourth in 2005–06 to earn their best result to date. The club made its first DFB-Pokal appearance in the 2003–04 competition and performed well, advancing to the quarter-finals by eliminating Eintracht Trier, Karlsruher SC and Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen before being put out themselves by VfB Lübeck.   They currently lie 12th in the Bundesliga.

All I know is that if we lose or even draw this one, it could seriously put our CL aspirations in doubt.  Difficult choices for Pep with Liverpool coming up, but surely even a makeshift City team should win this one?

32 thoughts on “Hoffmeister v CITY”

  1. Given the huge dropped bollock at home v Lyon, this game takes on an even bigger meaning. Would a draw really be the end of the world?? Dont think so but 3 points would be grand. We have to go strong here with all the big guns playing. Cannot worry about Sunday here. We have to man up and put in two shifts.

    Who will start at LB is a big question for me and will be even bigger for Sunday. pep was singing Zinchenkos praises for his last two games.

    Great to see KDB back in training.

    Sorry to say, I will miss this game as they dont seem to show the Chumps League here in thailand. I think its just streamed, which sucks as I cannot watch it at a normal time on a replay.

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  2. DAZN has the exclusive rights to stream ECL in Canada. I cannot stump up $20/mth and there is no point – games are played at 12:45pm local during work hours. No ECL for me this year. A City win; nothing more nothing less allowed. We were very good on the weekend against an outclassed opponent. Sane and Sterling look very good and Zinchenko played really well forming a good pivot in the old inside left position. He should play in this game. Foden to play? This could be a good game to rest Silva B and play Phil.

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  4. I’m confident we will get through the group but that terrible performance really adds pressure in that we probably won’t have the luxury of resting players for any of our remaining matches. I’ll go for a narrow win. 1-0.

    Can’t believe Delph has been ruled out of Anfield and as well as Zinchenko did against Brighton, Liverpool is a whole different proposition.

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  5. The coverage has changed in the US of A and in Thailand for the Chump League and it sucks. Streaming double sucks as I dont think you can put it on the DVR and I dont know if the games get replayed. Here in thailand games are on in the middle of the night and in the US of A/Canada they are on during the work day.

    Cannot see Foden starting but he might feature in the 18. If he didnt start the Brighton game, when will he start a League or champs League game? Think he will get a start or two when the games come crazy fast in Dec/Jan time frame.

    Dont think we can really afford to “rest” many key players, especially given we lost our first group game at home. Doubt Pep will entertain that idea at all.

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  6. Duff and Frank – in the UK these games are on BT Sport and I can’t afford to subscribe to that, in addition to Sky (and shortly, not to Eleven;, Yahoo; Amazon Prime; Uncle Tom Cobley and all, either) so it’s the radio for me – hopefully on BBC Radio Five – which I realise you can’t get abroad for commentaries, though they sometimes forget to block it. I am in the same “Who Dat?” camp as Tony, regarding Hoffenheim: weren’t they started by that guy in Knight Rider? If we can’t win convincingly there, we may as well give up (a la united). 3-0 for me and a few players withdrawn after an hour….

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  7. They must be doing something right to qualify for the champs league full stop. They will be well organised and we underestimate them at our peril, Bundesliga sides are very difficult to beat. I’m going for a 2-2 draw which wouldn’t be the end of the world. Worrying that Zinchenko is in line to face Liverpool, how has it come to that FFS. Tomorrow’s side should be this: Ederson, Walker, Zinchenko, Stones, Kompany, Gundogan, B.Silva, Foden, Sterling, Sane, Aguero.

    Subs: Muric, Danilo, Otamendi, Fernandinho, D.Silva, Mahrez, Jesus.

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  8. Is it “Follow the bear” tomorrow night then Tony?
    There’s been a bit of talking up of the opposition in the media but that has been undermined by their defeat in the Bundesliga at the weekend. Apparently they have been villified for having a sugar daddy that bankrolled their progress from obscurity to the Bundesliga and they only lost the spotlight because RB Leizig came along – the Bundesliga equivalent of City.

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  9. Yep ,the biased City hating Beeb have a story on their website about Hoffenheim, how they could easily upset City ( fingers crossed hey Beeb?). Another article by a Salford rag rat who will be getting their knickers wet at the thought of us losing our first two matches. I’d be far more concerned about their own shower of shite who should be worried about going down rather than being obsessed about the champs.

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  10. Whether we like it or not, the hierarchy at the club see the CL as the ultimate goal, the number one priority. Expect a strong starting 11 and strong bench. ‘Resting’ players will only occur when/if we win the group.

    Hopefully, we’ve already had our annual poor performance in Europe and put in a professional shift tonight.

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  11. Haven’t seen the BBC article, but read another which said Bayern had lost here during Pep’s time in charge. He certainly won’t be complacent. Think we’ll start with a very strong line-up, the only caveat being Aguero to feature from the off if fully fit, otherwise we’ll have to make do with Jesus.

    On the left-back issue, it could have been worse if Zinchenko had left the club as Pep was willing to allow. Can Danilo play there, or does or most expensive signing Mahrez have hidden talents…

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  12. Yes, good job that we didn’t accept that pin money from whoever it was for Zinchenko, £15 million, I think was the fee probably paid in instalments. Of course, when we go looking for a replacement LB, we’d have been quoted £40 million

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  13. Surprised Pep’s gone for Laporte at left-back, particularly with who’s coming up next, after he had a torrid time against Liverpool in that position last season.

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  16. That was interesting, job done, but if that ref is straight I am a Dutch clog maker.
    Well done City because tonight you beat 12 men sticking to your principles. Silly booking for Kun at the end though.
    Will check the rag result later hoping for a laugh.

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  18. Fcuk Uefa you corrupt bastards, not wanting City anywhere near the final, so they order the refs to go against us at every opportunity. 95% of decisions went for Hoffenheim, they should’ve had one sent off for a sly challenge on Merlin first half, surprise surprise the ref didn’t see it. Stonewall penalty turned down, numerous pathetic fouls given against us etc etc, but it’s ok because it evens itself out over the course of the season eh?.

    Anyway rant over and it was a pretty poor display from the bits that I saw on a poor stream. Silva and Aguero looked the stand out players, the rest looked off colour. Need to up it big time for Sunday, because Liverpool will punish us badly if we play like that.

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  19. An obvious penalty in my eyes and all those involved on the American stream.

    But what does our own Daily Telegraph say?

    ‘ Baumann who dived at his feet. Sane prodded the ball past, waited for contact and duly fell over.’

    So it was all Sane’s fault then although the clear exasperation at the challenge showed the true story.

    No doubt United will get a favourable ref and a Press waiting for a Rag win to resume their normal love affair.

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  20. PS. Why on earth was the throw in pulled back when Silva was standing on the line exactly where the ball went out out even moving an inch. Surely it couldn’t be that that City by fair use of the rules had created a good dangerous attacking situation?

    May I boo?

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  22. Yeah the ref was unbelievable. The throw in incident had me ranting. The penalty decision had me laughing it was so absurd yet predictable. Just such a relief to win in the end.

    If we play anything like that on Sunday we’ll get battered. Who the fuck decided Laporte can play centre back or left back? Absolute nonsense. Kompany and otamendi were so unconvincing and we were like a colander in midfield. Gundogan was so lightweight and I was actually relieved he got injured. Hopefully he won’t start on Sunday.
    We look a million miles off winning this competition.

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  23. That was bloody awful. Yes, I accept the referee was giving every 50/50 silly decisions to them and my God, when sky say it was a nailed on penalty, then it really MUST have been. Nevertheless, we looked slow and ponderous this evening pretty much as we did in the last game. One day, perhaps in the distant future, when we are all old and grey, Raheem Sterling will score when on a one on one situation with the keeper. Liverpool are going to murder us.

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  25. Poor effort tonight, but thank God for Merlin. We all know we will be handed our annual beating on Sunday, but if we play like this, it could be 3 or 4 again. The only Mancunians who believe we will get ANYTHING from this game are rags – and they genuinely cannot understand how we never win at Anfield.

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  26. All we need to do is wait for the scousers to fall asleep and then set their clocks forward to 15th December. Then on Sunday, we turn out at Anfield in red and white and Liverpool will think they have overslept and are playing Manchester United. Bob’s your uncle – one shot on target and three easy points is a certainty.

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  27. Put me in the ‘ we’re going to get tonked at Liverpool’ camp. It’s as obvious as night following day really. They will score with their first shot which will no doubt be a screamer, then our heads drop and it’s the usual story.

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  28. Too true DB and it always seems to follow the same script. We pass the ball around for ten minutes or so, look like we’re in control and the first time the get sight of our goal – bang and it’s 1-0. If we get back into the game like we did last year with Sane’s great leveller, we usually miss a couple of chances to take the lead and then they nip in and score. Usually it’s deflected too.

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  31. Well,I see the scousers didn’t bother trying tonight, saving all their energy for their cup final on Sunday. Would result possible for us tonight.

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