1899 strike 9 past FV Ettlingenweier

Head coach Holger Stanislawski had a full squad to choose from excluding the ongoing injury concerns and opted to utilise a 4-3-3 formation with Rudy dropping into defensive midfield and Babel and Frimino either side of a three-pronged attack.

It only took 2 minutes to break the deadlock as Peniel Mlapa demonstrated his clinical finishing to put the Bundesliga side in front, but the lower league minnows held on resiliently until half time to keep the lead to one. Firmino and Braafheid both had chances to add to the scoreline, while the returning Chinedu Obasi rattled the crossbar with a stinging effort from long-range just after the half-hour mark.

Stanislawski took the opportunity to make several changes during the break as Daniel Haas, Matthias Jaissle, Fabian Johnson, Vedad Ibisevic, Dominik Kaiser and Isaac Vorsah entered the game for Tom Starke, Marvin Compper, Obasi, Braafheid, Jannik Vestergaard and Denis Thomalla.

Stanislawski responded appropriately as the goals began to pour in during the second half. Mlapa again struck early with his second goal coming five minutes after the restart, before Babel notched Hoffenheim's third with a tremendous individual effort. Ibisevic then went on a rampage scoring 3 of his 5 inside 15 minutes, allowing Firmino, who looked dangerous throughout the match to pop up with one of his own with seven minutes remaining. It was then left to Ibisevic to close up shop adding two more to his tally firstly finishing off Firmino's superb move and then getting on the end of Fabian Johnson's ball into the box for the ninth.

Despite another heavy scoreline, new head coach Holger Stanislawski still wasn't fully satisfied with his teams performance: “We wanted to do certain things differently. In the first half we weren't at all clinical in front of goal.” However, the Hamburg native was confident in his player's ability to eradicate the mistakes, especially over the coming week in Feldkirchen. “We know what we need to work on, that's the most important thing. Things are gradually improving.”

Hoffenheim: Starke (45. Haas) - Beck (C) (45. Johnson), Compper (45. Vorsah), Vestergaard (45. Jaissle), Braafheid (45. Raitala) - Rudy, Babel, Firmino - Mlapa, Thomalla (45. Ibisevic), Obasi (45. Kaiser).

Goals:
2': 1:0 Mlapa, 50': 2:0 Mlapa, 58': 3:0 Babel, 62': 4:0 Ibisevic, 76': 5:0 Ibisevic, 77': 6:0 Ibisevic, 83': 7:0 Ibisevic, 83': 8:0 Firmino, 88': 9:0 Ibisevic