Vo the eyes of football legend Franz Beckenbauer, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim has secured a place in the top flight of the Bundesliga and increased FC Augsburg’s concerns. Head coach André Breitenreiter’s team won 1-0 (1-0) on Saturday and secured their third win in a row. The 17,206 spectators – including former world and European champions Beckenbauer – saw a largely one-sided game in which Hoffenheim benefited from the winning goal from midfielder Dennis Geiger (39th minute).
Beckenbauer’s visit came as a surprise, since the “Kaiser” is hardly ever seen in public. He canceled a visit to the funeral service of his friend and HSV icon Uwe Seeler almost three weeks ago for health reasons.
On Saturday he didn’t watch the Bundesliga game of “his” FC Bayern against Borussia Mönchengladbach in the evening, but rather Hoffenheim against Augsburg in the afternoon. Beckenbauer is considered a friend and confidant of Hoffenheim’s patron Dietmar Hopp. He had already traveled to Kraichgau for a TSG home game in September 2019, against Gladbach.
This time he didn’t get a big spectacle, but a deserved winner. TSG, which Coach Breitenreiter had started on the offensive with Georginio Rutter, Andrej Kramaric and Christoph Baumgartner, as they did in the 3-0 win in Leverkusen, were the better team from the start and won one game after the other. While Grischa Prömel (7th), Kramaric (10th) and Rutter (26th) initially warped, Geiger did better shortly before half-time.
Pepi plays and has to go out again
Andrej Kramaric got through on the left and crossed to Robert Skov on the second post with pinpoint accuracy. The violinist, who is often plagued by injuries, completed his filing worth seeing for the lead. The Augsburgers had remained pale in the first half and had hardly created any chances. Hoffenheim goalkeeper Oliver Baumann experienced a rather quiet afternoon. Even after the change, it was the hosts again who missed the first chances in the person of Baumgartner (52nd) and Ozan Kabak (64th).
The FCA, which arrived without Niklas Dorsch, André Hahn, Reece Oxford and Felix Uduokhai, was clearly losing their substance. Raphael Framberger replaced Uduokhai, who had been absent for several months, but kept struggling with the lively Kramaric.
Up front, head coach Enrico Maassen made multi-million transfer Ricardo Pepi his debut in the starting XI – and took him down again after 56 minutes because he felt no connection to the game. The final phase of the game was characterized by fouls and interruptions – because Hoffenheim’s Dabbur carelessly missed (88th), it remained 1-0.
