Football Season Guide

Julian Nagelsmann will start his first full season as head coach of Hoffenheim after making an excellent impression during his handful of matches at the end of last term. The Sinsheim club were struggling to stay ahead of the relegation battle last year until Nagelsmann took over but he steadied the ship and will hope to build on results this season. But the club frequently go into new seasons with plenty of optimism only to have it dashed due to the players or coach not quite living up the board’s expectations and they will have to let Nagelsmann have a fair go at being in charge. With the squad having been bloated over recent seasons with successive managers bringing in new players that were then not wanted by the next coach there has been another clear out at the start of this year. A number of squad players have moved on but they have been joined by a couple of more important players who will be big losses for the team to deal with. That is certainly the case with Kevin Volland who has been one of Hoffenheim’s best players over recent seasons and he will be greatly missed in the attack. Instead of Volland the club look likely to play with two strikers after Adam Szalai was brought back to the club, Andre Kramaric signed on a permanent deal and Sandro Wagner joined. The emphasis amongst those players is on height and physical ability so Hoffenheim are likely to be playing a lot of balls into the box this season. They still have some creative players though such as Eduardo Vargas who will hope to have a bigger impact this season. While the signing of Kerem Demirbay also gives them a further creative outlet, though he is largely unproven at this level. Lukas Rupp and Kevin Vogt will bring more physical presence to the centre of midfield which was an area they lacked players last year. Overall Hoffenheim have a squad which is decent without being spectacular and Nagelsmann will probably have to settle for a mid table finish and look to build in the coming seasons, should he be given the time to.