Don't Hassle the Hoffenheim

Early season league tables always throw up interesting anomalies; for example the current Premier League campaign had Hull City pushing for top spot and reigning champions Manchester United wedged in the bottom half back in August. United have form in this respect though, in the first Premier League season they began at the foot of the table after back to back defeats. However, eventually the status quo is inevitably restored, and so Hull are currently abseiling down the table, and teams like Carlisle, Swansea and Watford have intermittently been allowed to lead the top flight so long as they know their place and edge their way back down the table before they over stay their welcome.

In Germany though a new face seems intent to overstay its welcome. TSG Hoffenheim arrived in the top flight for their debut Bundesliga season in August, and impishly won their opening two games before being officially welcomed to the big time by a 5-2 defeat at Bayer Leverkusen, followed soon after by a 5-4 loss at Werder Bremen. However, instead of running home, cowering in their room and strategically covering their bruises when forced to emerge for meal-times Hoffenheim just went back to winning again. And at the end of October, with a 3-0 win over nearest challengers Hamburg meant that Hoffenheim had shown the temerity to return to the top of the league.

Naturally, since that date the German media has constantly alluded to the fact that this cannot last, that the bubble will burst, but now on the other side of the Bundesliga's Winter Break Hoffenheim are still sitting in Bayern Munich's seat and refusing to get up. The crucial thing about Hoffenheim's success this season is that this club is not a sleeping giant, enjoying a long overdue stint in the top flight. No Hoffenheim are more of a rich man's folly. As recently as the early nineties Hoffenheim were little more than a village team, playing in the amateur ranks at the eighth tier of German football; now they are the top team in the country thanks in no small part to the backing of Dietmar Hopp.

The entrepreneur Hopp had played for Hoffenheim as a young man before going onto other things; namely founding SAP AG, Europe's leading software company. Having made a tidy profit during his twenty years away Hopp returned to his former club as financial backer, and has helped pave the club's way up the divisions. Its an unlikely story, and one which will never be matched in this country; the equivalent would see Lincoln United or Goole defeating Manchester United in fifteen years time. And so, though the Bundesliga has an unfamiliar look to it's upper echelons, the influence of Hopp's millions mean many German fans are not as welcoming to the wind of change as they may be.