German village heroes
European football has never seen anything like it - a village team on course for the Champions League. Meet the men behind the amazing story of TSG 1899 Hoffenheim
North Ferriby, population 3,800, is a picturesque Humberside village with a school, a pub, a British Legion club, a fish-and-chip shop, and a football team who punch above their weight. North Ferriby United play in the premier division of the Unibond League. They have won the East Riding Cup 13 times and once reached the third qualifying round of the FA Cup. Not so long ago they moved up to the seventh level of English football, and they went into the weekend seventh in the Unibond table. Their average home crowd, before yesterday's game against FC United of Manchester, was 211.
Imagine if North Ferriby were to have risen a further six levels and, instead of playing FC United, they were hosting Manchester United. And at the halfway stage of their debut season at the top level, they were top of the Premier League, with United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal in their wake.
If that sounds ridiculous and impossible in equal measure, it is what is happening in Germany. Hoffenheim, a village in the south-west of the country and about the same size as North Ferriby, give or take 50 souls, were playing at the same level as the Humberside club, the eighth tier, at the start of the 1990s. If they draw or win today, at home to Schalke, Hoffenheim will go into the winter break top of the Bundesliga. There are many hoping they do not: fans of bigger clubs who cannot abide the thought of these village upstarts leading the way.
It is a freezing cold winter's day when Observer Sport visits Hoffenheim. There is a baker, a coffee shop, a barber, a couple of bars and, beyond the silent lanes and well kept timbered houses, the lightly frosted Baden-Württemberg countryside. And there is TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.
The club have 2,000 members yet their temporary home, capacity 26,300, and the new stadium due to open in January (30,000) will be sold out for all remaining games this season. In the baker's, shop assistant Tamara Weitz says: 'I've been a fan all my life and my father and sister have a season ticket. The Hoffenheim players eat our bread but not so much the cake.'
Until 1992, Hoffenheim were an amateur club playing in the Kreisliga A, whose English equivalent is the lesser divisions of the Unibond League, the British Gas League and the Ryman League. Their rise up the divisions - surely the most remarkable anywhere in world football - is a result of investment by a local man who played more than 200 games for Hoffenheim. It started in 1990 when Dietmar Hopp, who according to a recently published list is the world's 698th richest person, began putting money into a trust for the club. So far he has pumped in more than €150m (£133m).
Hoffenheim worked their way up the ladder, and back-to-back promotions took them into Bundesliga I last summer. Now, 18 years since Hopp's arrival, his club show no sign of heading back in the other direction and are building a new home fit for kings. A point today will earn them the title of Herbstmeister - halfway champions.
The average age of the first team is under 23. They play exciting, attacking football under the leadership of head coach Ralf Rangnick, an anglophile who is a great admirer, and friend, of Arsène Wenger.
'It would be an absolute sensation if we do this,' says Rangnick, when asked if Hoffenheim can actually win the Bundesliga and create a chapter in modern sport that would surely be incomparable.
Their rise is a tale that has caused bitter jealousy from rival supporters. 'There's a lot of hatred because a lot of them think our success is just down to money,' Hopp says. 'The fact is, however, I've invested five times as much money in the infrastructure - youth-development centres, playing fields, the stadium, and training centre - as I have in the professional football team.' Abuse aimed at Hopp includes incessant chanting over his parentage and, as at a recent game against Borussia Dortmund, seeing an image of his head as a target.
On this particular morning, Rangnick's squad are unable to train on the frozen five a-side pitch next to the small, temporary building that acts as the club's press office. Instead, the players drive up the hill to the now disused Dietmar Hopp Stadion - home matches are played at Mannheim until next month's move to the Rhein-Neckar Arena in nearby Sinsheim - so they can take advantage of the under-soil heating. Supporters and media wander in as the players walk over the grass to a dugout where they change from training shoes into football boots.
Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and John Terry probably last had to change in the bitter cold like this when playing in Sunday youth football. Yet the squad that heads one of Europe's powerhouse leagues could hardly care less.
Seriously rich men owning and controlling clubs are commonplace but, unlike the billionaire foreigners in the Premier League, Hopp is the local boy who played many times for his beloved team. 'Ever since I was young, I've been a keen player,' says the 68-year-old, whose fortune from the software firm he co-founded in 1972 is about €1bn. 'At 14 I started playing in the youth team. At 17, I was given special medical permission to play in the first team - back then, the football association only allowed players under 18 to play if a doctor confirmed that there was no medical reason why they shouldn't. I don't know exactly, but I'd say I played more than 200 games. I always really enjoyed it. And when I was at university in Karlsruhe I was selected for the first team.
'I grew up in Hoffenheim and have always maintained a strong connection to the place. In 1990, the success of SAP [the software company] enabled me to start providing financial support. At that time, the club was playing in the local community league and I mainly helped the youth teams.'
In 2005 Hopp came close to merging Hoffenheim with two other local clubs and basing the new team in nearby Heidelberg. Local planners were against the idea, though. 'So we built the stadium in Sinsheim,' Hopp says, 'and to our surprise we have still gained a great number of supporters. That is due in no small part to the fact that we see ourselves as the club for the whole of the Rhein-Neckar metropolitan region. Of course, our team's very attractive and entertaining playing style has also won us a lot of fans.'
In 2006 Hopp made the final push by recruiting Rangnick, a former Schalke, Hannover and VfB Stuttgart coach, who needed four weeks 'and another 24 hours' to make the decision to work in the third division, a level he had left behind 12 years earlier.
'Mr Hopp had been trying to win promotion [from the third division] for three or four years with no success,' says Rangnick, a bespectacled 50-year-old who managed Schalke in the Champions League four seasons ago and, like Wenger, is nicknamed 'the professor'. 'At that time he was still putting money in, but not as much as now. What he had been trying to do was the same as many clubs - bring in experienced, expensive players. He was looking for a big solution. I told him that we wanted to look for younger players from the start.
'We realised after two or three months that we needed Francisco Copado [a 34-year-old midfielder] and other older players. After the promotion to league two we said, "Now we completely concentrate on the younger ones." We only looked for players aged between 17 and 23. The oldest we've signed in the last three years was Per Nilsson [a Swedish defender]. He was 24. All the others we signed were 19, 20, 21.'
In all, around €20m was spent last season, an investment that Rangnick felt no need to match this summer, such was his confidence in his players' ability.
'With those youngsters you have to let them run. If you play defensively with a young team it is a contradiction. Young players have many advantages. They learn faster, listen, can cope with the intensity of training. Young players also know that they need team spirit, and need trust and confidence from us.
'The average age of the squad is 22-and-a-half. We have only four defeats, which is absolutely unbelievable. The progress in recent months is outstanding.'
Among those recruited was 23-year-old defender Marvin Compper, who became Hoffenheim's first Germany international when making his debut against England in October. There is also the Bundesliga's top scorer, Vedad Ibisevic, a 24-year-old Bosnia striker with 18 goals so far. Chinedu Obasi, a 22-year-old Nigerian, is challenging Bayern Munich's Franck Ribéry to be considered this season's best performer in the Bundesliga.
'It was a tough decision,' Obasi says of his move from Lyn Oslo in Norway, where he had played with his best friend, Chelsea's John Obi Mikel. 'I'd never heard of Hoffenheim. When I got a call and they were in the second division in Germany it was difficult because my agent wasn't really buying the idea,' he says referring to John Shittu, who also represents Mikel. 'But the trainer told me what the team wanted to achieve, and I wanted to be part of it.'
Hoffenheim have improved throughout the season. They are top scorers with 41 goals - four more than champions Bayern, to whom Hoffenheim were unlucky 2-1 losers in a memorable match in Munich last week. The Bayern line-up featured Ribéry, Champions League winner Marc van Bommel, and Luca Toni, who won the last World Cup with Italy. Hoffenheim also have the second best defensive record, with 22 conceded.
Asked to explain the club's performance, Rangnick laughs modestly and names four key areas: the primacy of young players, a long-term vision, an emphasis on man-management and his role as the sole leader of the club.
'We wanted to build success, win promotion in the next one to four years, and have a team with the quality to play in the first division. Also, senior players like Copado and Selim Teber [who captained the team into Bundesliga 2] may have been overhauled by the young players, but they are still important emotionally. Leading the team emotionally is key, rather than just giving commandments. I've been with Arsenal twice - two-and-a-half and four years ago - in their pre-season training camp in Austria. There you could see Arsène. Of course he's the boss. But there are staff around who give his players the chance to develop.
'Finally, it's a different system here than in England where, in the big clubs at least, the manager is strong. In Germany you have the head coach, but also at least two other strong figures. It is only us and maybe Wolfsburg, with Felix Magath, who have the manager system.'
Rangnick is an anglophile who when studying English, which he wanted to teach, spent a year at Sussex University. He lived in Lewes and played for Southwick in the Sussex County League. 'I was a defensive midfielder. My first game was Chichester away. I was one-on-one with the goalkeeper and was sure it was a goal. But a tackle from behind put me in hospital for four weeks. I had broken three ribs and perforated a lung. It was a serious injury, what might happen in a car accident. But it was normal - what we called the English physical game!'
Hopp, who Rangnick says visits the dressing room only after victory and never interferes in team matters, also remembers his early playing days. In his first game for Hoffenheim's youth team he forgot his shorts. 'I had to play in normal trousers. After the first sliding tackle, they were so torn they flapped about like a skirt. But I still managed to score the goal that took us to the final score of 1-1.'
His hopes for this season have changed as Rangnick and his team continue to astound. 'Our goal was simply to avoid relegation,' Hopp says. 'But we've become more ambitious, although I would be happy if we were in the top eight.'
He conceded that he cannot continue indefinitely to support the club and Rangnick understands the importance of stabilising their position. 'In the last two years it was very much because of Mr Hopp, and the club's future still depends on him. Should we qualify for Europe, whether it be Champions League or Uefa Cup, it'll be difficult to stay there over the next three or four years. And, to keep our players and bring in new ones, I still strongly believe we need him.'
Hopp is passionate about Hoffenheim and appears unlikely to walk away soon. There is an element of co-dependency in the relationship between owner and club, because of the Bundesliga rule that members own 51 per cent of a club. Hopp's deal is 'essentially based on trust. The investments I've made, the loans, are not guaranteed. But as long as the team continues to do well this is not something I need to worry about. I own the stadium and the training centre, both of which are rented by the club at a good market rate.'
Can he imagine other German clubs following his example? 'I don't think it would happen again in the same way. I've known all the officials at TSG 1899 since I was a boy. That's why it's not a problem for me that an investor can't become the majority shareholder in a football club. I don't think I've set any precedents here.'
Does Rangnick believe the ownership structure stops German success in the Champions League? Seven years have passed since the trophy was claimed by Bayern Munich, who find themselves in the Uefa Cup this season.
'We have this discussion if we should get rid of the 51 per cent rule. But many of the traditionalists are afraid to have a situation like Manchester City, where a sheikh comes and buys Borussia Dortmund or Bayern,' says Rangnick. 'On the other hand I think everybody would love to have somebody like Dietmar Hopp with the same ambitions as the club.
'It's possible, but the gap between the big clubs of Europe and ours is getting wider. There is so much TV money in other countries, and some also have better tax breaks for players. Then there is the additional money from Abramovich, the sheikhs or whoever, so players can earn in one week what ours do in a month. It's difficult to attract top players and keep them.
'The only chance we have here is to build young players like we do in Hoffenheim. But it sounds good, doesn't it? Hoffenheim against Arsenal or Manchester United in the Champions League.'
It would, as Rangnick says, be a sensation. And it will not be happening in North Ferriby.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/dec/14/bundesliga-football-hoffenheim
Very, very interesting read.
