Dortmund Faces Hoffenheim: A Crucial Test in Sinsheim
The transfer window is closed. The rumours have gone quiet. For Borussia Dortmund, there’s only one thing left on the agenda now: play football.
They’ve eased into the season so far. Three points against Hamburg in the league, safe passage in the cup against HEBC. Routine, controlled, exactly what Niko Kovac would have wanted to settle the nerves.
Now comes the first real stress test: Hoffenheim away.
Hoffenheim Reloaded
Hoffenheim arrive as one of the Bundesliga’s trickier assignments. Last season they finished just a single point shy of the Champions League spots, a remarkable rise for a club that, not long ago, stared relegation in the face.
Christian Ilzer walked into that crisis during the 24/25 campaign, steadied the ship, then turned it into something more ambitious. Safety first, then a season later he doubled their points tally. That’s not a fluke. That’s a project taking shape.
The summer, though, forced a reset. Bazoumana Toure, their electric winger, moved on. Fisnik Asllani’s planned move to RB Leipzig collapsed after he failed his medical, and he remains sidelined with injury anyway. Hoffenheim had to react.
They did. Patrick Wimmer arrived from Wolfsburg to plug the Toure-sized gap out wide. Then came two of the most memorable names in the league: Mats Rots and Nathan De Cat. Behind the fun, there’s substance. De Cat brings energy and bite both ways and is expected to slot into midfield alongside Wouter Burger, whose own name has already become a cult favourite.
Only Wimmer made the XI in Hoffenheim’s 2–3 defeat to Köln on the opening weekend, but don’t expect that to be the template. Ilzer has options now and, facing Dortmund, he’s unlikely to stand still. Asllani remains out, yet the rest of the squad offers enough flexibility for a reshuffle.
What won’t change is their identity. Hoffenheim want the ball. Last season they ranked fourth in the league for possession, one place ahead of Dortmund’s sixth, and they dominated the ball again against Köln with 59%. They don’t sit and wait. They take the initiative.
Kovac’s Selection Puzzle
For Dortmund, this game doesn’t just ask whether they can win. It asks who will carry the fight and how they’ll do it.
The first issue is personnel. Konstantelias’s ACL injury has ripped a creative thread out of the side. Samuele Inacio is suspended. That leaves Kovac with a gap in the line of two behind Serhou Guirassy, where someone must now partner Karetsas.
Three names stand out: Marcel Sabitzer, Carney Chukwuemeka, and new signing Ethan Nwaneri. Each offers something different. Chukwuemeka brings drive, Nwaneri brings youthful unpredictability, but the smart money is on Sabitzer’s experience and balance winning out in a game of this magnitude.
Then comes the tactical question. Against both Hamburg clubs, Dortmund dictated. They out-shot their opponents 35–9 across the two games, with 20 of those efforts coming in the Bundesliga opener alone. They had the ball, they probed, they suffocated.
That luxury probably disappears in Sinsheim.
Hoffenheim will fight them for every spell of possession. If Ilzer’s side impose their usual rhythm, Dortmund will either have to wrestle control in midfield or accept a more reactive role and turn fewer touches into sharper chances. This is where Nmecha and Bellingham’s partnership in the middle gets its first real stress test of the campaign.
Can they handle a game where they don’t automatically dictate tempo?
Kramaric, the Old Nemesis
One name hangs over this fixture like a familiar storm cloud: Andrej Kramaric.
Calling a 35-year-old super-sub the “Player to Watch” sounds odd until you look at his record against Dortmund. He doesn’t just score against them. He haunts them.
Only five players in Borussia Dortmund’s history have scored more often against die Schwarzgelben. Four of those sit in the Bundesliga’s all-time top ten scorers list. The fifth is 15th. That’s the company Kramaric keeps when it comes to punishing this club.
In 18 matches against Dortmund, he has 11 goals. Two of them came in this very fixture last season.
Ilzer doesn’t need Kramaric to start. He just needs him to be ready. Expect the Croatian to emerge from the bench at some point, chasing another moment to add to his personal highlight reel against Dortmund, and to test a back line that still feels like it’s finding its rhythm.
Shape, Roles, and the Likely XI
Kovac experimented in midweek, rolling out a 4-3-3 against HEBC. It did the job, but it looked like a one-off rather than a blueprint.
For Hoffenheim away, the expectation is a return to the more familiar 3-4-2-1. Sabitzer steps in for the injured Konstantelias, restoring the structure that has underpinned Dortmund’s early-season balance.
Gregor Kobel should reclaim his place in goal after Meyer’s cup outing. In front of him, a back three of Gadou, Anton, and Ryerson offers aggression and mobility. Out wide, Svensson and Beier are set to patrol the flanks as wing-backs, asked to stretch Hoffenheim’s shape and then sprint back as soon as it breaks.
Nmecha and Bellingham remain the heartbeat in central midfield, the trusted pairing tasked with either matching Hoffenheim’s possession game or snapping into transitions when the ball turns over. Ahead of them, Sabitzer and Karetsas will operate between the lines, linking play, pressing from the front, and feeding Guirassy.
Guirassy, fresh off his goal last week, should once again lead the line. One chance is often all he needs. In a game where Dortmund may not enjoy their usual volume of shots, that efficiency could define the night.
A Narrow Margin?
This feels like the kind of contest that swings on details: a loose touch in midfield, a set piece, a Kramaric cameo, a Guirassy finish.
The expectation around Dortmund is for a tight affair, the sort of early-season scrap that doesn’t always look pretty but says plenty about a team’s ceiling. A narrow 2–1 away win is a bold prediction.
If they pull it off, it won’t just be three more points. It will be the first real sign that Kovac’s Dortmund can impose themselves not just on games they’re supposed to control, but on nights when someone else wants the ball just as badly.
