Just three weeks ago, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim seemed sunk somewhere in the inconspicuous midfield of the Bundesliga.

The village club, which climbed to the top class in 2008 thanks to the generous support of its patron Dietmar Hopp, no longer produced headlines as it did under the promoted coach Ralf Rangnick or under the young promoted coach Julian Nagelsmann (2016 to 2019) when it was tenth in the table after four wins, three draws and five defeats ).

Under Sebastian Hoeneß, the successor to the current chief trainer at FC Bayern Munich, the Hoffenheim team seemed to be bobbing, also because a long chain of Covid diseases and injuries within the team had slowed down rapid progress.

But now, after three wins in a row, TSG has made a big step forward for the time being.

With attacking football worth seeing, the team won 2-0 against RB Leipzig, 6-3 at the bottom of the league, Fürth and 3-2 against Eintracht Frankfurt.

The catapult effect: Hoffenheim made the big jump to fifth place and this Saturday (3.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky) in the Derby in Baden, SC Freiburg will meet SC Freiburg in their new arena.

Fourth against fifth: It is the top game of the fifteenth matchday.

Great prospects for TSG 1899, which in its second year under the meticulous foreman Hoeneß reveals the qualities that were ascribed to the Hoffenheim team in their prime.

And recently even without their Croatian star Andrej Kramaric, who was injured in the head and foot and only scored two goals in this round after twenty hits in the previous season.

Football from the Hoffenheim brand

The massive winger Ihlas Bebou (five hits) and Georginio Rutter (four) represented him with resounding success, as did the Israeli center forward Munas Dabbur (two). "For a long time there was a lot of talk about the dependency on Andrej," says Hoeneß, "we put it aside a bit." Alexander Rosen, Director of Professional Football at TSG, knows how important a healthy Kramaric is for this team, and therefore attaches great importance to the statement: "Nobody here makes the mistake of saying: It works without Andrej."

For the 42-year-old sports director, the fact that Hoffenheim football currently looks more harmonious than it has been for a long time is primarily due to the “development of many players”. “We played the last games without Kramaric, Florian Grillitsch, Christoph Baumgartner, Pavel Kaderabek, Sebastian Rudy or Robert Skov, among others, so we didn't sing a lament. We preferred to focus on the guys who were available to us. Because we have a group with a lot of quality that comes close to the big words constancy and balance. We are on a good way."

This path is underpinned by data.

The team has the fourth best offensive in the league with thirty goals;

she has created 94 chances to score - the second most in the league;

the efficiency in front of the opponent's goal (31.9 percent) is the fourth best in the league.

“We show many facets of the courageous offensive game,” says Rosen, “but we also get one or two hits too many.

What we are seeing now is football from the Hoffenheim brand.

And that's great fun. "

No million transfers

Whether the club, which recently was seldom the focus of national football interests, will be able to write a new success story with possibly additional international components in the long run has not yet been decided.

The Bundesliga’s broad midfield is too permeable, both upwards and downwards.

"Our games are spectacular, we really do it," says Rosen, who praises the long unimpressive coach from the Hoeneß dynasty. “He continues to develop the team and the players. The calm with which he mastered difficult situations is a great quality. ”According to Rosen, the“ very intelligent man with a wonderful sense of humor ”refrains from headline-grabbing slogans because he wants to be measured solely by the results of his work.

Hoeneß can draw from a large, 34-player squad, in which there were no million transfers in purchases and sales before this season after high operating losses due to the corona-related ghost game round 2020/21.

"In those times it was also about standing for stability and continuity," says Rosen, "and that's why we focused on the existence and development of promising talent."