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Glenn Hoddle picks out Adam Hlozek as the Hoffenheim player to watch, partly because “he’s got a left foot and a right foot”. And probably also because he’s the club’s joint top-scorer this season, has looked like a star in the making for several years and is still only 22.
I know what you’re thinking: is the Morten Krogh who is refereeing this game related to the Morten Krogh who reached the quarter-finals in the epee at the 1972 Olympics and won five national fencing championships in his native Norway? And perhaps also to the Trine Krogh who competed in the pool at the same Olympics, in the 200m and 400m medley? And, by extension, to her uncle, the Lars Krogh who won 15 Norwegian championship titles in freestyle swimming as well as 14 in water polo before becoming president of the Norwegian Swimming Association?
And the answer is, probably not. He’s not even Norwegian.
The teams!
Team news is in, and here are the starting line-ups:
-Hoffenheim: Baumann, Kaderabek, Akpoguma, N’Soki, Jurasek, Stach, Becker, Hlozek, Bischof, Kramaric, Moerstedt. Subs: Luca Philipp, Hranac, Gendrey, Micheler, Kalambayi, Chaves, Mokwa, Behrens, Erlein, Tim Philipp, Djuric.
Tottenham Hotspur: Austin, Porro, Dragusin, Davies, Gray, Bergvall, Bentancur, Maddison, Kulusevski, Richarlison, Son. Subs: Forster, Whiteman, Lankshear, Moore, Ajayi, Olusesi, Hardy, Cassanova.
Referee: Morten Krogh (Denmark).
Hello world!
At this moment, when they are wrecked by self-doubt and stink of the foul funk of failure, the footballing fates have handed Spurs the precious gift of encouraging fixtures. Sure, they played the first of those, against an Everton team that had scored one goal in their previous six league games, on Sunday and managed to make their opponents look like the 1970 Brazil side, concede three and lose, but they have a chance to make up for it (kind of) tonight, and another against Leicester this weekend. Their season can still come good (or, at least, better).
Hoffenheim, 15th in the Bundesliga, three points above 16th-placed Heidenheim and the threat of a relegation play-off, have lost six and won just one of their last 10 games in all competitions, that solitary victory coming against 17th-placed Holstein Kiel on Saturday. “I play football because I want to win, and when you don’t win for so long, it really gets you down,” said the defender Kevin Akpoguma. “In the changing room after the game, you could feel that a weight had been lifted. After a win, everything is just nicer. A win always energises you, that’s been noticeable in the past few days too. But we can’t ease off now, we need to keep it up. It’s important that we all develop a hunger for it, so that we have this feeling much more often.”
Of their own last 10 games Spurs have won three and lost a mere five. On form, this is no contest. And yet. One problem is that Spurs have only 13 first-team players to choose from, with Pape Sarr added to the injury list after the Everton game. This makes Ange Postecoglou’s job easier, because the team more or less picks itself, and also harder, because it is more likely to be rubbish and there is less he can do about it if it is.
“The reality is we don’t have a lot of choice,” the Australian growled. “We’ve no other options, that’s the basic premise of it. We’ve probably got 13 first-team players who’ve travelled. We don’t have many options, apart from throwing untried youngsters in there but I don’t want to do that to them. You really need a strong squad of players and keep them healthy to cope with playing in Europe if you do well in the cup competitions like we have, because it’s not manageable when you’ve got three games a week for the length of time we have.”
So here we are. Two desperate teams. One game. Tottenham, in ninth place and outside the automatic progress spots only on goal difference, will move into the top eight if they win and get to feel decent for a bit. Hoffenheim, in 27th, surely need to win at least one and lose neither of their last two Europa League fixtures if they are to have any hope even of a playoff place. It is, in its slightly miserable way, a massive, potentially season-shaping game. Welcome!
