TSG 1899 Hoffenheim Tactical Preview for Bundesliga 2026/27

Our next Get German Football News Bundesliga 2026/27 Tactical preview takes us…to Sinsheim. Right. All 18 clubs means all 18 clubs. TSG 1899 Hoffenheim belongs to the Bundesliga field whether we Germans happen to like it or not. The author can only promise the most level-headed analysis his gritted teeth will allow. One would think he got most of his grievances off his chest last year. Regrettably, the political situation at the Kraichgau club over the course of the 2025/26 campaign only produced more grievances.

This time, the Hoffenheim fans themselves demanded more of a voice in club affairs. That definitely merited extensive coverage. In point of fact, such protest actions constituted the very definition of what can and should be newsworthy on the Bundesliga beat. Some disagreed. The chronicler makes no apologies. Dietmar Hopp promised to turn this project over to the burgeoning fan-base that’s been supporting it for the past two decades. Potentially reneging on that promise counts as a story. Period.

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When it comes to the actual football produced by these Badeners, all coverage remains even-handed. TSG sporting director Andreas Schicker did a fabulous job reducing the roster last summer. The team supplied many memorable performances. Ahead of this season – were it not for the collapsed Fisnik Asllani transfer – Schicker would have produced nearly €100m in summer sales. The author concedes that such skillful administrating deserves praise as it would have theoretically negated the need for another Dietmar Hopp cash infusion.

Alas, we’ll likely be reading about more direct benefactor financing next year.

TSG 1899 Hoffenheim

From a straight footballing perspective, things are once again looking up for the 2026/27 Europa League participants. Schicker again put together a stellar offseason, cutting up transfer bait, and recruiting plenty of young promising talent. Dammit. The author literally can’t get through the next section quickly enough. There’s far too much to report. At least the sheer scale of the activity gives us an excuse to dispense with the rhetoric. Suffice to say that the squad planning and administrative enforcement was simply top-notch. Merely consider yourselves forewarned that this grouchy writer can only contain his disdain to a limited extent.

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Major personnel shifts, Hoffenheim

Estimated Summer Transfer Balance = +€5m

Bazoumana Touré and Grischa Prömel are the only two genuine regulars to have left the side that qualified for Europe. Instead, Andreas Schicker has effectively used Touré’s €50m move to Newcastle to make an already functional squad younger, deeper, and considerably more competitive. Roughly €68m has been reinvested into the team, with that additional Europa League workload very much in mind. The headline investment is teenage Anderlecht midfielder Nathan De Cat. Close behind, we have a €12m left-back in Mats Rots. Wouter Burger has promised to look after his two younger Dutch speaking “little brothers”.

Schicker rescued Patrick Wimmer from the sunken ship that was VfL Wolfsburg before dumping Muhammed Damar there at the player’s own request. Adam Daghim (a Wolfsburg player last season) arrived from his parent club Salzburg on a €13m transfer. Daghim, Wimmer, and 21-year-old Swiss striker Alessandro Vogt constitute the new attacking additions. Farther back, die Kraichgauer ended up winning the sweepstakes for defensive midfielder Cajetan Lenz (20) and also brought in 1860 München center back Sean Dulic. Lenz cost €10m. Dulic arrived on a free.

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There has been plenty of cleanup around the edges besides Damar as well. Haris Tabakovic, Hennes Behrens, Stanley Nsoki and others have been moved on permanently, while Hoffenheim continue to use the loan market aggressively for younger players and surplus squad members. The result is a Hoffenheim squad that has changed substantially without actually losing much of its established spine. Baumann, Kabak, Hajdari, Avdullahu, Burger and Kramarić remain. The summer has been less about replacing the team than making Ilzer’s version of it harder to break.

The author needs to mention that Schicker secured loan fees for Tohumcu, Gift Orban, Deniz Zeitler, Erencan Yardimci, Kelvin Frees, and Nahuel Noll. In other words, every last player parked in a different locale. Were it not for the collapse of the Asllani deal, Schicker would have completed the “perfect” summer transfer window everyone at Bayern is crowning Max Eberl with. The roster – with 30 paid professionals – is already in infinitely better shape than it was around this time last year. Schicker silenced effectively all of his detractors, including this one.

Notes from pre-season, Hoffenheim

Much to the author’s chagrin, Christian Ilzer’s Jungs delivered another undefeated pre-season. That is, until Gladbach woke up to score four goals in the final 45 minutes of their 120-minute Austrian scrimmage. Tim Lemperle, Rots, and Zeitler all got their names on the scoresheet in an away victory in Heilbronn. The team worked in an inchoate 4-4-2 diamond that had its issues, yet appeared stable throughout. Practically everyone in TSG blue (and their respective mothers) scored in the 21-0 rout against some village club west of Heilbronn known as “SV Massenbachhausen”. Yikes! The author confesses he doesn’t know if Lemperle’s four-goal haul had anything to do with the fact that the opponent featured farm animals working the back line or not.

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If we can sustain a more serious note, the Kraichgauer then proceeded to dominate two more serious opponents. SpVgg Greuther Fürth and Holstein Kiel both competed at Bundesliga level within the last five years. The Sinsheimers dispatched them both easily. Wins against 2. Bundesliga opponents happen to count for a lot as the opponents are much closer to the start of their season. In the 120-minute scrimmage against the Kleeblätter, Max Moerstedt – working atop a 4-2-3-1 – quickly put the top-level side ahead. Umut Tohumcu and some kid named Alex Honajzer padded the final tally in the final hour, in the end ensuring that the team received a well-deserved 4-1 scoreline.

In stark contrast to whoever handled the Union Berlin pre-season scheduling, Hoffenheim cruised through their next well-set-up test fixtures against 2. Bundesliga sides. Back in the 4-4-2 diamond (albeit with Deniz Zeitler clearly attempting to mimic the departed Bazoumana Touré), Lemperle again bagged a brace en route to a 3-1 victory over Holstein Kiel. Once again, however, the former Köln striker proved way too profligate in front of goal. Lemperle’s misses and some midfield lapses (the team struggled to maintain shape) led to the Storks hanging around for longer than they should have. Eventually, Lemperle’s second just before the stroke of halftime put the TSG back in control. Former Kiel loanee Tohumcu set up a Moerstedt poke-in to seal the deal late.

Tohumcu, Conté, and Burger then scored in Hoffenheim’s healthily-paced 3-0 win over Badener rivals, the Karlsruher SC. Much of what transpired in the next friendly has already been covered in Borussia Mönchengladbach’s section. The tactical diamond employed against KSC, a thin one, worked great in the upside transition play. The wider 4-4-2 in use against Gladbach, frankly, did its job for a solid 90 minutes as well. The biggest takeaway from the team’s pre-season campaign led us straight smack dab into the old “embarrassment of riches” cliché. Do excuse the author as he retreats to a dark corner to sulk and grumble at no one in particular for a few minutes.

Will return…

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…back!

The author confesses that – much as was the case with Leverkusen – he wanted to have this installment wrapped up ahead of the weekend in order to avoid having to watch not one, but two Hoffenheim friendlies. Alas, there simply wasn’t enough scouting information on hand to justify a well-informed piece by the time Friday evening hit. Imagine the author’s delight when Spurs politely placed the asses of their guests on a silver platter in the Saturday afternoon game. Juchu! Ahem. In the interest of fairness, it wasn’t quite as one-sided as the 0-3 scoreline might suggest.

The first dress rehearsal in London offered up some mixed signals. The Kraichgauer initially defended compactly enough and very nearly took the lead themselves early on. Richarlison scored first, but Adam Hlozek, Wouter Burger, and Adam Daghim had their first-half chances. Tottenham deserved their halftime advantage, but this wasn’t exactly a first-half slaughter. Mats Rots had two opportunities to level matters after the break. Patrick Wimmer also looked lively later. Max Moerstedt eventually forced another save.

Hoffenheim had their phases. They simply didn’t make them count. Once Spurs escaped the early second-half pressure, the additional goals came. This time around, Ilzer kept the squad in a 4-2-2-2 throughout. The first Tottenham friendly furnished some great clues to how the TSG might line up this season. The second, not so much. Ilzer shuffled the deck for a behind-closed-doors meeting on the Spurs training ground the following day, handing Hranac, Rots, Wimmer, and Conté starts while several of the previous afternoon’s regulars either dropped out or were held back.

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Hlozek converted a penalty won by Avdullahu for an early lead before Ben Davies and Luca Williams-Barnett turned the score around prior to halftime. Ilzer then replaced every outfield player at the break, and the new group promptly equalized when Alex Honajzer supplied Valentin Gendrey for the 2-2. Kramarić and Asllani remained on individualized programs, while Baumann, Kabak, Machida, and Prass were also spared. A perfectly respectable response to the previous day’s defeat, then, but we’ll resist pretending that a private Sunday-morning second helping fundamentally alters anything observed above. The first Tottenham fixture remains the more useful tactical dress rehearsal.

Winners from camp, Hoffenheim

Tim Lemperle, LS

The author’s enduring respect for 1. FC Köln academy products makes this selection at least slightly less painful. Lemperle’s first season in Kraichgau already confirmed what many expected when Hoffenheim picked him up on a free. The 24-year-old worked his way in, starting 24 of his 29 Bundesliga appearances and scoring eight goals while functioning as Ilzer’s “Chefanläufer” at the tip of the press. With Touré gone and Asllani’s return prompting a rethink as to where he might fit in after Ilzer spent the summer planning without him, Lemperle appears poised to take full advantage of the chance accorded him. Goals arrived regularly throughout this summer, including another brace against Kiel. The pressing, running, and ability to work either centrally or as a slanted striker remain exactly what Ilzer wants.

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What the author finds irritating concerns how much more productive he could be. Against Kiel alone, the former Köln striker generated five major opportunities inside 45 minutes and converted only two. That essentially summarizes the next stage of his development. Eight Bundesliga goals last year were respectable, but he might have reached double figures. The chances keep coming because Lemperle keeps arriving in the correct spaces. With Europa League football adding another layer to the schedule, Hoffenheim need exactly that sort of relentless runner in the attacking rotation. Lemperle looks ready for another step forward. As the player’s still obvious broken nose illustrates, Lemperle nevertheless exhibits a tendency to be something of a slow learner.

Below the belt? Bear in mind that footballers must be held to a high standard. The author is also just in a damned mood today. Discussing Hoffenheim simply touches all manner of raw nerves. In Lemperle’s defense, the battered face rather neatly symbolizes one of the qualities that makes him so valuable to Ilzer in the first place. He throws himself into duels, runs defenders into the ground, presses without mercy, and generally treats the concept of self-preservation as optional. If the finishing ever catches up with the rest of his game, there may not be much left for even this particularly hostile chronicler to complain about.

Max Moerstedt, LS

Let the crankiness continue! What did we tell you? This very column had Moerstedt down as one of Hoffenheim’s winners from camp last summer, only for Ilzer to spend much of the subsequent campaign keeping the highly decorated academy product trapped behind the established attacking hierarchy. By December, the author was already calling him “completely underutilized”. Twenty-two league appearances eventually followed, but 21 came from the bench. The one proper opportunity nevertheless furnished an excellent reminder of what everyone had been waiting for. GGFN named Moerstedt Player of the Match in Hoffenheim’s 3-1 win at Frankfurt after the 20-year-old scored the equalizer, helped create three more shots, touched the ball an absurd 71 times, and completed 50 passes while cycling through the right attacking lane.

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This isn’t some static 1.94-meter penalty-box telephone pole! Moerstedt can drop, combine, drift into the half-spaces, press, and still arrive where a proper No. 9 should. Moerstedt has officially been awarded the No. 9 tricot, has added loads of muscle mass, feels more explosive, and looked significantly more assertive this summer. Against Fürth, he won the penalty, took responsibility for it himself with Kramarić absent, and converted. He later scored against Kiel and continued getting himself into useful areas throughout the prep phase. Moerstedt has spent the past few years collecting medals at youth level and waiting patiently for this exact moment. At some stage, Hoffenheim actually have to find out what they possess.

Naturally, this being Hoffenheim, the problem remains the frankly irritating quantity of alternatives. Hložek finally looks fit again after an injury-ravaged year and should still gobble up heavy four-figure minutes across all competitions if his body cooperates; something in the 1,500-2,000 range hardly feels unreasonable. Daghim represents a €13m investment, started the first Tottenham test, and possesses enough pace and positional versatility to collect 2,000-plus minutes without necessarily blocking Moerstedt directly, since the Dane can work off either attacking axis. Alessandro Vogt constitutes another positional rival. Add Lemperle’s entrenched status, Asllani’s return, and Kramarić’s continued presence, and the competition remains just plain absurd.

Wouter Burger, CM

It’s a little redundant to call someone who was already one of Hoffenheim’s best players last season a “winner” from camp, but Burger somehow managed to strengthen his position anyway. The former Stoke man started all 30 of his Bundesliga appearances in 2025/26, contributed four goals and eight assists, and saw his estimated market value explode from €4.5m to €20m. Hoffenheim consequently moved quickly to reward him with a long-term contract extension before this campaign got underway. Burger remained a fixture throughout camp, found the net against Karlsruhe, and occupied one of the two central slots alongside Avdullahu in the initial 4-2-2-2 deployed against Tottenham. Newcomers De Cat and Lenz can crowd the midfield room all they like. Burger enters the season as one of the first names on the teamsheet.

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There happens to be a second reason for placing him here. With Prömel gone, the 25-year-old appears prepared to inherit Prömel’s role as a locker room leader. Burger has already volunteered to look after new arrivals Mats Rots and Nathan De Cat as his two younger ‘Dutch-speaking “little brothers”, a role that rather neatly illustrates how much his standing has changed in barely twelve months. None of this should require him to sacrifice the attacking freedom that made him so dangerous last season. Ilzer already learned that Burger becomes considerably more useful when permitted to break forward rather than merely sit alongside Avdullahu. The Dutchman’s box-to-box qualities remain uncanny. Leadership responsibilities, a fresh contract, established tactical importance, and two younger compatriots to boss around. Annoyingly enough, everything seems to be going rather well for Wouter Burger.

Nathan De Cat, CM

The raw minute count provides the clearest reason for inclusion here. De Cat went virtually straight from signing his Hoffenheim contract into Ilzer’s working rotation, starting the opening test against Freiberg and subsequently receiving substantial blocks against Kiel and Karlsruhe, among others. Against the latter two 2. Bundesliga opponents alone, he logged 46 and 60 minutes respectively. Hoffenheim originally presented the 18-year-old as someone who would be afforded time to adjust to Bundesliga football. Instead, Ilzer spent most of the summer treating the €17m-plus newcomer like a player expected to contribute immediately. De Cat accumulated far too many serious preseason minutes to be viewed as some decorative development project.

De Cat may well begin the season on the right-hand side of the attacking line rather than in his nominal central-midfield home. That would say plenty about how quickly Ilzer has come to trust him. Hoffenheim certainly did not spend north of €17m on an 18-year-old merely to plug an immediate hole out wide, but the youngster’s ability to interpret different spaces gives the trainer another convenient excuse to get him onto the pitch. Burger and Avdullahu remain difficult to dislodge centrally. Shifting De Cat higher up therefore offers a way of accommodating the new investment without disturbing the set-up. Just watch this kid. There’s more than the author’s intuition at work here. 

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Alex Honajzer, CM

Er…who? Precisely. The 20-year-old Czech attacking midfielder has been in Hoffenheim’s academy system since arriving from Baník Ostrava in 2022 and spent last season collecting senior experience with TSG II in the 3. Liga. That hardly placed him near the front of anyone’s Bundesliga preseason notebook. Ilzer nevertheless brought Honajzer into the first-team work and the youngster made the invitation count, popping up with a goal during the 4-1 Fürth test while more established names rotated around him. There is obviously an enormous distance between scoring in a July scrimmage and forcing one’s way into this absurdly deep Hoffenheim attack. That’s not really the point. Preseason winners don’t always have to win jobs. Sometimes they merely have to force Bundesliga chroniclers to stop writing “some kid named Alex Honajzer” and actually learn who the hell they are. Kudos, kiddo!

Mats Rots, LB

Another expensive newcomer who looks as if he may have skipped the customary settling-in period altogether. Hoffenheim paid €12m for the 20-year-old left-back, and Ilzer spent the summer giving him every opportunity to justify the investment immediately. Rots scored in the Heilbronn friendly, accumulated substantial minutes throughout camp, and remained heavily involved once the opposition quality increased. Against Tottenham, he twice found himself in position to equalize after the break, a useful illustration of how aggressively he can attack the left side rather than merely hold it. The trajectory is obvious. Rots already looks less like a long-term project and more like the player expected to make the left flank his own. Wouter Burger may have volunteered to look after his new Dutch-speaking “little brother.” Judging by preseason, the kid doesn’t appear to need much babysitting.

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Losers from camp, Hoffenheim

There probably isn’t a more obvious loser from camp than a player who spent most of it preparing to leave. Asllani had mentally packed his bags, skipped friendlies as a precaution, left Hoffenheim’s Austrian preparations behind, and appeared set to celebrate his 24th birthday as an RB Leipzig player before the transfer collapsed at the eleventh hour over medical concerns cited by Leipzig. Hoffenheim had already constructed the attacking department on the assumption that he would no longer be part of it. Lemperle, Hložek, Moerstedt, Vogt and eventually Kramaric were all being apportioned minutes while Asllani was effectively off the board. Now Ilzer has one more established striker than he planned for, while Asllani himself must make up conditioning work and establish relationships with newcomers after missing a significant chunk of the collective preparation.

There is, however, a rather compelling argument that this particular “loser” could end up winning rather quickly. Hoffenheim reported no acute medical problem, Asllani returned to team training without visible restrictions, completed virtually the entire session upon his comeback and was only held out of the final exercise for load management. The Kosovo international already knows every tactical demand placed upon him. More importantly, he wasn’t some disposable fringe piece before Leipzig came calling. If Asllani quickly restores his fitness and headspace, Ilzer may discover that the striker he reluctantly penciled out of his plans is simply too useful to leave there. The transfer collapse undeniably makes him one of preseason’s losers. Whether he remains one once the competitive football starts remains another matter entirely.

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Back from his semi-heroic spell in Augsburg, Chaves is back to being a nobody with his parent club. That sounds harsh, but the summer hierarchy offers precious little evidence to the contrary. Ozan Kabak and Albian Hajdari remain ahead of him. Even newcomer Sean Dulic (1860) has received more meaningful consideration in Ilzer’s defensive rotation. Chaves simply hasn’t logged enough serious preseason work to suggest that the Augsburg loan materially improved his standing back in Sinsheim. There is still a useful Bundesliga defender in there somewhere, and Augsburg certainly got enough out of him to prove that point. Hoffenheim, however, currently look like the wrong place for him to demonstrate it.

Robin Hranac, CB

An odd one this. Hranac experienced a total renaissance last year, making 29 league appearances (26 starts) and going the full 90 minutes on all but three occasions he was included in the starting XI. In the process, the Czech international pumped his estimated market value from a nadir of €3.5m to a career high €10m within nine months. What happened? The author isn’t entirely sure, but preseason offered precious little indication that Ilzer still regards him as one of the first names in the defensive hierarchy. Kabak and Hajdari increasingly looked like the preferred pairing once the serious tests arrived. No calamity, no obvious collapse, and certainly nothing resembling the confidence crisis that defined his first year in Sinsheim. Just an oddly quiet summer for a player whose stock had risen so dramatically. For someone coming off such a strong campaign, merely slipping back into the crowd qualifies as a loss.

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Tactical Scout, Hoffenheim

The first of the Tottenham friendlies at least give us a reasonable idea as to how Hoffenheim will line up in the Pokal fixture next weekend. German sympathies remain with opponent Erzgebirge Aue, but, unlike with Augsburg, an “Ossie Upset” appears unlikely. Based on the lineup we’re about to project, a rout seems much more plausible. With Andrej Kramaric still likely to be unavailable for the cup encounter, the only real question left is who lines up behind the strikers in a 4-4-2 diamond/4-2-2-2 set-up. Ilzer lords over no shortage of attacking weapons. The author thus projects a stacked forward front capable of ending this one early.

Lineup–TSG (PROJECTED)

Adam Hlozek serves as the best bet to start behind the striking tandem of Tim Lemperle and Max Moerstedt. The Czech forward actually brings with him extensive experience working as a service striker. By all means, it remains possible that Ilzer will opt not to deploy some of the names listed above. After all, he absolutely doesn’t require his best XI to take the Pokal match. Mats Rots may start over Bernardo. Valentin Gendrey may get the nod over Vladimir Coufal. Adam Daghim or Alessandro Vogt may pop up anywhere along that forward line. Only Fisnik Asllani appears to be not quite far along yet.

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Above, we basically have Hoffenheim’s best XI entering the season. The system itself proves as impressive as the actors listed. A 4-4-2 diamond can easily shift into a 4-2-2-2 whenever more offensive thrust is required. The Kraichgauer appear destined for a top-four finish, just as they were last year. Ahem. Why didn’t Hoffenheim capture Champions League football? The writer will actually broach what, at first, appears to be a crazy idea. Hear him out. Trainers responsible for running this team simply get bored. Look it up if you must.

The author stands by a statement backed by seven years of covering tactics on this specific beat. Julian Nagelsmann. Alfred Schreuder. Sebastian Hoeneß. André Breitenreiter. Pellegrino Matarazzo. Now Christian Ilzer. Hoffenheim repeatedly possess enough talent that coaches become tempted to devise increasingly elaborate solutions when simpler ones would do just fine. The author knows a little something about that, by the way.

He also knows boredom when he encounters it. 

Let’s close the book on this club and move on.

GGFN | Peter Weis