While Lu Wenbin led the team to a 5-0 away win over Obrand to advance to the next round of the German Cup, the club was also busy.
The summer transfer window isn't over yet!
In order to prepare for the new season's Champions League and three-line battles, Hoffenheim continues to strengthen its lineup.
On August 3, the day after the team returned to their base after an away win over Obrand, Hoffenheim announced two major transfers, both from two major football powers in South America.
The first is Suculini, who was born in 1990 like Lu Wenbin, is not yet 19 years old, has already been favored by the football king Maradona and is known as the "new Mascherano".
Suculini is a player of Atlético de Argentina. Although he is only 18 years old, he has already become the brain of Atlético's midfield and the backbone of its defense. He is also an international player of the Argentina national team and has become the new darling of Argentine football.
The young Suculini has better dribbling skills than Mascherano and is equally fierce in defense. What’s more frightening is that he has a physical strength that seems to have no limit.
He can cover all areas of the midfield, from the front of his own penalty area to the opponent's penalty area. Whether it is defense or offense, he is all-round and has no physical worries.
If he wasn't too young and lacked fame and honors, Hoffenheim might not have been able to sign Sukulini.
Of course, Sukulini’s own wishes are also important.
Maradona told Suculini that in order to make greater progress and achieve higher achievements, he must go to Europe to play in the UEFA Champions League.
Therefore, Sukulini would rather play with European Golden Boot winner Lu Wenbin and play in the Champions League with Hoffenheim, who created the Hoffenheim miracle.
Hoffenheim finally won the competition with Serie A Torino and Udinese and won Sukulini for a transfer fee of 4.6 million euros, further strengthening the team's midfield lineup.
Then, on the forward line, Hoffenheim also introduced Brasilia striker Maiko Sur for 4.5 million euros.
Maikosur is several years older than Sukulini, and the almost same price shows that Maikosur's potential has been exhausted, and forwards are inherently more expensive than midfielders.
Therefore, in fact, the value of Mikosur is far less than that of Sukulini, and he is just a backup substitute in the forward line.
Everyone in Hoffenheim was really scared by the wave of injuries last season. This season, not only did they renew the contracts of most of the players, but they also continuously introduced new players, bringing Hoffenheim's first-team lineup for the new season to 30 people.
This number of people is considered seriously overstaffed in the eyes of a coach like Mourinho.
However, no one in Hoffenheim, including Ralph, felt that the number of players was too large. Because of the lessons learned last season, they hoped to have as many backup players as possible.
In this way, there are several backup candidates for each position and there is no need to worry about injuries.
Of course, no one wants to see a wave of injuries.
If everything goes well this season and there are not too many injuries, some people in the team may not get many chances to play throughout the season.
In any case, in the German transfer market that pursues financial health, Hoffenheim spent 16.1 million euros to introduce Simunić, Sukulini and Miko Sur, which was already the second highest transfer fee in Germany in the summer of 2009.
This indirectly proves that Hope is not short of money.
Of course, this price pales in comparison to Bayern Munich, which set a club transfer record.
Hoffenheim was successful last season, so the main task was to renew contracts with old players such as Lu Wenbin. After all, the introduction of new players was only a small number.
But Bayern Munich is different. Last season, Bayern Munich failed to win any of the four major titles.
Last season, Bayern Munich finished third in the Bundesliga and had to start from the play-offs this season; they were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the German Cup and did not even make it to the semifinals; they also stopped in the quarterfinals of the Champions League and were beaten 5-1 in two rounds by Barcelona in the quarter-finals.
After learning from the painful experience, Bayern Munich invested heavily in signings this season.
Not only was head coach Klinsmann fired, but the famous Dutch coach Van Gaal was brought in and he made many big moves in the transfer market.
30 million to bring in Gomez from Stuttgart, 24 million to bring in Robben from Real Madrid, 11 million to bring in Tymoshchuk from Zenit St. Petersburg, 7.7 million to bring in Pranjic from Heerenveen…
Bayern Munich's summer transfer spending exceeded 70 million euros, setting a record in Bayern's history and also the highest record for Bundesliga transfer investment.
The Bundesliga giants want to regain their Bundesliga championship title from Hoffenheim and make progress in the Champions League and the German Cup.
Although Bayern Munich achieved a record of one win and one draw against Hoffenheim last season, seemingly having the upper hand, everyone knows that Hoffenheim gave up the second match at the end of the season directly, and losing was natural.
Therefore, Bayern Munich's match against Hoffenheim cannot be considered a victory.
What's more, one year earlier, Bayern Munich even lost directly to Hoffenheim, which was a 2. Bundesliga team at the time, in the German Cup final and lost the German Cup championship.
Bayern has long wanted to defeat Hoffenheim, take revenge and break the so-called Hoffenheim miracle.
Coincidentally, after the first round of the German Cup is over, the 2009/2010 German Bundesliga season is about to kick off, and the opening match is between last season's champion Hoffenheim and Bayern Munich at home.
On August 6, the day before the game, newly appointed Bayern coach Louis van Gaal led a brand new team to Rhine-Neckar County.
At the pre-match press conference, Van Gaal declared: "The new Bayern Munich will surely rule the Bundesliga again and restore the Bundesliga to its original order!"
The implication is that the original order of the Bundesliga is that Bayern Munich is the champion and other teams compete for second place. Van Gaal's goal in this game is to lead Bayern to beat Hoffenheim away from home.
As for Lu Wenbin, Van Gaal commented: "Lu is very strong and can break records repeatedly, but his teammates are not. Football will never be a one-man sport, and Lu can't rely on himself to beat the entire opponent team in every game! Bayern Munich will use facts to tell him that staying in Hoffenheim is a mistake. He should go to a giant like Bayern Munich, with stronger teammates to cooperate with him, so that he can achieve higher honors and achievements!"
The implication is that there is a lot of disdain for Hoffenheim, a country club with no background, and those little-known players.
Whether it is his true thoughts or a psychological tactic, outsiders do not know.
After all, even if Bayern Munich does not have the championship, it is indeed much more famous than Hoffenheim!
Apart from Lu Wenbin, Hoffenheim's configuration in other positions is really hard to compare with giants like Bayern Munich. As a striker, Lu Wenbin's support from teammates on the court is bound to be lower than that of giants.
It is indeed unwise in the eyes of some media and fans for Lu Wenbin to stay in Hoffenheim instead of transferring to a giant like Bayern.