Matchday 1 Match of the Week – FC Köln v TSG Hoffenheim

It’s the beginning of a new Bundesliga season.  Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this season had a later beginning than usual.  Each season usually begins in August, but because the 2019-20 season was suspended for two months, the beginning of this season was pushed back.  With the new season comes a new broadcast partner for the Bundesliga.  For the past several years, Fox Sports held the US broadcast rights.  That deal expired this year.  The new broadcast partner is ESPN.  That’s both good and bad.  The bad part is that ESPN will broadcast only one Bundesliga game every weekend on television.  Fox would broadcast five. The good part is that all Bundesliga games will be on demand via ESPN+.  Although Fox broadcast more games, sometimes they wouldn’t broadcast the best, most competitive games. I like to see games with lots of goals. This week’s Bayern Munich vs. Schalke 04 match had many goals, but they were all scored by Bayern.  Blowouts like that tend to get a bit boring.  Low-scoring draws [1-1 or 0-0] are usually equally dull.  This week there were two games that saw plenty of goals.  One such game was FC Köln v Hoffenheim 1899.  The other was SC Freiburg v Stuttgart.  Both had a final score of 3-2, but my choice for this week’s game of the week is FC Köln v Hoffenheim 1899.

SC Freiburg v Stuttgart was a good game.  SC Freiburg jumped out to a 2-0 lead and held it until halftime.  Two minutes after the half, they extended their lead to 3-0.  It had the prospect of being a blowout.  SC Freiburg is a mainstay of the Bundesliga first division, although they usually finish every year in the middle of the pack.  Stuttgart is an up-and-down team.  For the past several seasons they flirted with relegation to the second division.  Last year they played in the second division, having been relegated by Union Berlin in a two-game home-and-home playoff after the 2018-19 season.  This year they’re back in the first division with many young players, most of whom are not yet 22.  Given that Stuttgart is a young team and newly-promoted to the first division, one would expect them to be disheartened by going down 3-0 to the more-experienced Freiburg.  Not so this week.  Stuttgart finally got on the board at the 71^st, and got their second goal ten minutes later.  They had momentum on their side, and the home crowd of 8,000 fans [who sounded like 24,000 – they were that loud] rooted them on.  SC Freiburg withstood charge after charge from Stuttgart until the final whistle six minutes into stoppage time, but they hung on for the win.  Stuttgart didn’t roll over and play dead.

The FC Köln v TSG Hoffenheim game was a bit more dramatic.  Hoffenheim got on the board first when Croatian international Andrej Kramaric scored just four minutes into the contest.  Köln goalie Timo Horn made a fairly lackadaisical pass to defender Jonas Hector to begin the Köln attack.  Hector didn’t know Kramaric was behind him, and when Hector made a lazy pass back to Horn, Kramaric intercepted the pass and got an easy goal.  Luckily for Köln, Swedish international Sebastian Andersson evened the score eighteen minutes later with a header from a beautiful cross from Jan Thielmann.  Andersson was just signed only five days ago from Union Berlin.  He showed his worth to Köln almost immediately. All was tied until just before halftime.  Austrian midfielder Christoph Baumgartner was brought down in the penalty area.  After several minutes of review via the Video Assisted Referee [VAR], Hoffenheim were awarded the penalty shot, which Andrej Kramaric converted in the last play of the first half.

Almost immediately after the start of the second half, Andersson nearly equalized for Köln, but was denied from point-blank range by Hoffenheim goalie Oliver Baumann.  The score stood with Hoffenheim leading 2-1 until Köln midfielder Dominick Drexler received a header from Sebastian Andersson and buried it in the back of Hoffenheim’s net for the equalizer at the 86^th minute.  With one goal and one assist, it wasn’t a bad day’s work for new signee Andersson, and it appeared that Köln and Hoffenheim would share the spoils with a 2-2 draw.  But Hoffenheim weren’t done.  With two minutes into stoppage time, Andrej Kramaric got the hat trick after deceiving numerous Köln defenders.  The game’s outcome was decided at the very last minute.  Wins like these are thrilling for the winners, and agonizing for the losers.  Since the outcome of the game wasn’t decided until very late, FC Köln v TSG Hoffenheim is my “match of the week”.