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1899 Hoffenheim UEFA Champions League Odds
There is no club in this year’s Champions League that has had a more meteoric rise than 1899 Hoffenheim. The club was founded in 1899 and has been an obscure, virtually unknown club throughout its existence. Up until the 1990s, Hoffenheim was an amateur team made up of locals who mostly treated it like a beer league team. At the start of the decade, they were in the eighth tier of German football, and not even the most optimistic supporter would have guessed where the coming years would take them.
By the end of the 1990s, Hoffenheim had moved up a couple rungs in the German football hierarchy. They were in the sixth tier of German football at the turn of the century, and then former player Dietmar Hopp showed up to push them all the way to the top.
Hopp is a self-made billionaire and one of the founders of German software giant SAP. Hopp grew up playing for Hoffenheim, and he came back to the club in order to see them succeed. He started off making a small investment in the club in the early 2000s and that paid huge dividends. Hoffenheim was promoted in each of the next two seasons, putting them in the third tier of German football. As the club succeeded, Hopp put more and more money into Hoffenheim, and it no longer was just a pet project.
By the middle of the 2000s, Hopp was hooked. He built a stadium for the club and continued to help move the side up the ladder. After a few years of being stuck in the third tier, they finally earned promotion to Bundesliga’s second division in 2007 and spent just one year there before gaining promotion to the top flight.
Hoffenheim’s incredible run out of nowhere was the talk of Germany, especially after the club led the Bundesliga going into the winter break. Hoffenheim had scored 42 goals through the first half of the season, and their offense looked like it might just propel them to an unthinkable Bundesliga title in their first season in the top league.
However, injuries to key players led to a downturn and the club finished seventh. Still, Hoffenheim were able to stay up and they became a middle of the table team over the next eight seasons. Recently, they were even able to qualify for European competition after a fourth-place Bundesliga finish in 2016-17 and a third-place finish last year.
Odds on Hoffenheim to win the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League: +10000
1899 Hoffenheim in European Football
| YEAR |
COMPETITION |
FINAL PLACE |
| 2017-18 |
Europa League |
Group Stage |
| 2018-19 |
Champions League |
- |
It’s not often that you see a team come from nothing like 1899 Hoffenheim have been able to do. Additionally, although the club have Hopp to thank for a lot of their success, the team has been built in a sustainable manner. Hopp has not just thrown tens of millions of Euros at the best players in order to make Hoffenheim a power overnight, rather he has built the team from the ground up in many ways.
Last season was Hoffenheim’s best yet. The club was able to finish in third-place by the skin of their teeth, giving them an automatic spot in the Champions League Group Stage. It wasn’t easy though. Hoffenheim finished in a three-way tie for third with Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen. All three teams ended the year with a record of 15-10-9, leading to goal differential being the deciding factor. There, Hoffenheim’s margin of +18 was slightly better than Dortmund and Leverkusen, giving them the spot.
This offseason, 1899 Hoffenheim has brought in a number of players in hopes of Champions League success. Befitting their stature, they did not spend more than seven million Euros on any player though, instead hoping to strike it big thanks to their scouting department. Unfortunately, the club was not able to keep last year’s leading scorer, Mark Uth, but they did hold on to Andrej Kramaric. Kramaric came up big for Croatia at the World Cup, and he will be looking to take another step forward.
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