In the clash between the promoted teams, TSG Hoffenheim II made a big statement and sent the league leaders from Duisburg home with a 4-1 defeat.
TSG Hoffenheim’s second team defeated MSV Duisburg 4-1. That was a good result for the 3rd division leaders.
While MSV has won only one of its last seven games, Hoffenheim has picked up ten points from its last five games and now has the best offense in the league with 32 goals. Stefan Kleineheismann, coach of TSG Hoffenheim II, said after the game on “Magenta Sport”: “The first half was our best performance of the season so far, pretty much everything went right. We worked incredibly hard for the win with our pressing. Duisburg had no time to play free balls and, on top of that, we made some great combinations and scored some fantastic goals. We want to make a statement, but my focus is also on ensuring that we can do this against any opponent, that we achieve consistency in this team so that the boys can take the next step in their development.“
His counterpart, MSV coach Dietmar Hirsch, was naturally anything but satisfied. He said openly and honestly: ”We completely confused the sport. We played a bit of basketball, without any physicality. That’s the key thing, and we made individual mistakes. We didn’t perform well at all. Our tackling was abysmal in the first half and there were simply too many individual mistakes. We showed a slight reaction in the second half, played more physically and scored a goal, which is not a given when you get beaten so badly in the first half. We need to work through this and talk straight. We want to make amends with a good performance next week. I expect a reaction!”
The fans cheered us up after the 1-4 defeat here in Hoffenheim. But we feel very sorry for them because they’re freezing their asses off here in the stands at minus two degrees and we’re offering them something like this. We want to show a reaction against Alemannia Aachen. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t diminish what we’ve achieved so far this season. We need to forget this black day quickly. Tobias Fleckstein
Center back Tobias Fleckstein and his teammates are also determined to deliver a response. After all, a sold-out crowd awaits on Saturday, November 29, at 2 p.m., when the Westschlager against Alemannia Aachen kicks off in Duisburg.
“I think the coach summed it up well. This shouldn’t happen—no question about it. We could have been down 0-6. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again as soon as possible. We completely lost the strength and aggressiveness in tackles that we usually have. But maybe it’s better to lose like this once than four times 0-1.”
Looking ahead to the Aachen game, Fleckstein said: “The fans cheered us up after the 1-4 defeat here in Hoffenheim. But we feel very sorry for them because they’re freezing their asses off here in the stands at minus two degrees and we’re offering them something like this. We want to show a reaction against Alemannia Aachen. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t diminish what we’ve played so far this season. We need to forget this black day quickly.”