Kramaric, Kramaric, Kramaric – without the offensive artist, TSG Hoffenheim usually have little going for them. This underlines the quality of the Croatian, but also harbours dangers.
Andrei Kramaric’s contract expires at the end of this season and so far the Bundesliga club’s attempts to extend the manager’s contract beyond 2022 have failed. Even though Kramaric always stresses how comfortable he feels in his adopted home Heidelberg and the Bundesliga ninth since his move in January 2016 from Leicester City, where he threatened to languish behind Jamie Vardy and Shinji Okazaki. Even though Valencia FC are not a serious option for the future due to a lack of sporting prospects. That is the status quo, a transfer (free of charge) is imminent.
The importance of the 30-year-old was shown once again by his goal to make it 1-1 against VfL Wolfsburg almost at the interval – with this goal behind them, TSG came out of the dressing room much more self-confident and went on to win 3-1. Overall, a dependence on the 2018 World Cup runners-up can hardly be denied, although Hoffenheim are currently showing great variability: The club statistics show nine different goal scorers in the current season, a top value.
Kramaric is also a top scorer, the 1:1 against Niedersachsen was already his 98th goal in a competitive match for Hoffenheim, and now he is chasing the 100th. He is already the record scorer in the league with 83 goals. And the fine technician has another record in his sights: with 38 assists, he currently shares first place in this category with Kevin Volland – it should only be a matter of time before Kramaric relegates the Monegasque, who worked for the Kraichgau club from 2012 to 2016, to second place. Perhaps as early as this Saturday (3.30 pm, LIVE! on kicker) at VfB Stuttgart.
