Entertaining draw on Fan & Family Day

CFC Genoa were TSG's opponents for their official season opener. After seven wins from seven friendlies and a goal record of 45-0, last season's 14th-placed side in Serie A provided a stern test in the final pre-season friendly. The two sides played out an entertaining 1-1 draw which very much whet the appetite for the new campaign.

TSG's came flying out of the blocks in their first game of 2014/15 inside the WIRSOL Rhein-Neckar-Arena, with Tarik Elyounoussi scoring the opening goal after just six minutes. Adam Szalai played the perfect through ball to put the Norwegian in, and he kept his cool to slot past Mattia Perin. Hoffenheim were in control and had further chances through Szalai and then Roberto Firmino, but the Genoa goalkeeper was not to be beaten this time. However, he could count himself lucky not to be picking the ball out of his own net again soon after, with Brazilian Firmino's shot rattling the crossbar after wonderful link-up play between him, Szalai and Elyounoussi. The visitors weren't completely under the cosh though and had two big chances of their own, but some brilliant last-ditch defending from Ermin Bicakcic and then Jin-Su Kim saw both of them cleared off the line.

Oliver Baumann was the one getting the applause of the fans after the break, making two fine stops from Ragusa in one-on-one situations. TSG manager Markus Gisdol, who had his entire squad available bar Pirmin Schwegler, Kai Herdling and Jannik Haberer (being rested), made numerous changes. Just moments later, two substitutes combined as Anthony Modeste missed the chance to double Hoffenheim's lead, heading narrowly wide from Jiloan Hamad's cross. An even better opportunity arose for the Kraichgau club to make it 2-0 in the 70th minute. Sven Schipplock was brought down in the area and the referee pointed to the spot. However, the usually reliable Sejad Salihovic's spot kick was palmed away by goalkeeper Perin. The away side made TSG pay for that missed opportunity ten minutes from time, when Luca Antonelli turned the ball home from close range to equalise – the first goal that Hoffenheim had conceded in all of pre-season.

But that didn't dampen the fans spirits. A great day at the WIRSOL Rhein-Neckar-Arena wrapped up with players signing autographs for the fantastic supporters. The match also gave manager Markus Gisdol one more chance to test out his side before the first competitive game of the season against USC Paloma in the first round of the DFB Cup next Sunday (14:30 CEST kick-off). “We haven't overvalued the results so far and that's something we won't do today either. We will be doing some fine tuning in training this week. You could see today that we've worked an awful lot lately. Now it's about getting the right dosage. All in all, it was a good test today and I can be happy with the result,” said the TSG boss.

Match facts and statistics »