It's one game after the next for Bayern. The Reds are back in league action three days after winning the UEFA Super Cup against Sevilla. On Sunday the titleholders take on TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in the first away game of the new Bundesliga season – the preview brings you key information on the match.
FC Bayern completed the fine tuning ahead of Sundays game in a final training session on Saturday. Here is a gallery of the best images:
Situation for FC Bayern
Bayern travel to Hoffenheim with great confidence on the back of the longest winning run in top European football – 23 wins on the bounce with Bayern the only team in the big leagues on the continent to achieve that – plus the fourth trophy of the year secured. However, the reigning champions have to fend off the first challenges from rivals after the 8-0 victory over Schalke in the opening game if they are to stay top of the Bundesliga after matchday two – and that means Hansi Flick's team have to get a result in Sinsheim in spite of all the stresses and strains of a double fixture week. "You can still produce top performances even when you're tired," the coach said before again sounding a warning about the opponents: Hoffenheim "They’ll be up for it tomorrow so we have to be on our toes."
After winning the league, DFB Cup and the Champions League, Bayern completed the 2020 quadruple on Thursday with a 2-1 victory after extra time in the UEFA Super Cup against Sevilla.
Opponents TSG 1899 Hoffenheim
It has been a promising start to the season for Sebastian Hoeneß. After TSG struggled slightly in the first round of the DFB Cup (3-2 on penalties away to Chemnitzer FC), there was a successful start to the Bundesliga campaign with the 3-2 win away to FC Köln. The former championship winning coach of the Bayern Reserves became the first Hoffenheim coach since Markus Gisdol in April 2013 to win their first league match. The 38-year-old has to thank striker Andrej Kramarić who has scored no less than the last nine goals for TSG.
Hoeneß can hardly wait for the clash against his former club: "I'm really happy as are our players and the whole club that we're playing against Bayern – and that’s also due to the fact we can finally play in front of spectators again," said the TSG coach. Up to 6,030 fans will be in the stadium on Sunday in accordance with the coronavirus regulations.
Personnel
After the strenuous start to the season, Hansi Flick left open the question of whether players would be rested in Sinsheim. "We'll put out a team that can definitely play against Hoffenheim. Of course, it's important to spread the load," said the 55-year-old before adding: “We have the option of making five substitutions and we'll make use of that." Fortunately there were no injuries from the UEFA Super Cup trip to Budapest in the week with Flick probably only having to manage without Tanguy Nianzou (thigh). Kingsley Coman returned to training after 14 days of self-isolation and would be an option as a substitute. "Perhaps he’s capable of playing for 20 minutes that would be good for us," explained Flick.
Coman took part in the final pre-match training session on Saturday after 14 days self-isolation due to a coronavirus case in his neighbourhood.
There was also positive team news for Sebastian Hoeneß. "The injury list is slowly improving," said the TSG coach who will be without Havard Nordtveit (foot) and Konstantinos Stafylidis (shoulder) as well as the captain Benjamin Hübner: "But Stefan Posch trained the whole of this week and Robert Skov and Florian Grillitsch are well on the way back. We'll decide if we can play them on Sunday," revealed Hoeneß.
View from the dugout
Hansi Flick: "At times we made life difficult for ourselves against Sevilla when we didn't move the ball properly. The ball moves well when we have possession. If the opposition have the ball then we have to run. We don't want to change anything about our way of creating goalscoring opportunities. We want to move the ball where the opponent is vulnerable and that's in their own half."
Sebastian Hoeneß (TSG 1899 Hoffenheim coach): "Bayern are currently the best team in the world or at least the best in Europe. I'm not actually interested in whether Bayern are tired or not on Sunday. If there's a team that is used to this frequency of games then it's FC Bayern. We have to be well prepared mentally and tactically. On top of that, we have to play with courage and passion as that's the only way to get a result against Bayern. So I'm in a confident mood."
Other key information about the clash with TSG is available in the fact file on the game:
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