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Schipplock scores five in emphatic TSG victory
There were four new signings amongst Gisdol's starting XI – Defenders Jin-Su Kim and Bicakcic made their competitive debuts for Hoffenheim, while Pirmin Schwegler, who made the move from Eintracht Frankfurt, started in midfield. Hungarian Szalai partnered Sven Schipplock in attack as TSG lined up in a classic 4-4-2 formation.
Hoffenheim, wearing all yellow, made their intent clear from kick-off as they immediately forced Paloma onto the back foot, cueing loud celebrations from the home fans when their side cleared a TSG attack, or on the few occasions that their team broke over the half-way line. It took less than ten minutes for the guests to take the lead. A quick free-kick was played to Sven Schipplock, who in turn released Elyounoussi and he made no mistake when confronted with the task of beating USC keeper Jonas, and slotted the ball through his legs to hand TSG a deserved lead.
They doubled the lead in the 17th minute when Schwegler's corner from the left flank was headed home by Bosnian Bicakcic. It became three just thirty seconds later when Strobl's cross was headed on by Szalai to the feet of Schipplock, who thundered in a third. TSG found themselves with a three-on-one situation just before the half hour mark when a delicate through-ball from Szalai released Elyounoussi, before the Norwegian rather unselfishly squared the ball to Schipplock to tap in to an empty net. Schipplock completed his 15-minute hat-trick and added Hoffenheim's fifth five minutes later when he hammered in a rebound.
The guests regained possession quickly from the resulting restart with yellow shirts swarming around the ball and launched another lethal attack. This time, Szalai finally opened his account for TSG after latching on to Elyounoussi's chipped through ball. The former Schalke man unleashed a composed left-footed finish into the bottom right corner to rack up the guests' half-dozen. Hoffenheim completed the first-half rout when Kim's exquisite free kick from all of 30 yards was tipped onto the crossbar by Jonas. Fortunately Schipplock was there again to pounce on the loose ball and make it seven for TSG at the break.
The first chance of the second half fell to Elyounoussi but his shot inside the box was tipped around the post by Jonas. This was Schipplock's day though, and the TSG number nine was hungry for more goals. It was Schwegler's corner which his fifth goal came from and the striker beat his man at the near post to head in Hoffenheim's eighth. That was to be his last contribution though as Anthony Modeste came on in his place shortly after. The home side's only half-chance came when TSG lost possession in the centre of the park. Latvian Rihard Depers seized control of the ball for the hosts with his shot going narrowly wide of Baumann's right-hand post, but brought arguably the biggest cheer of the ninety minutes from both sets of supporters. Modeste rounded off Hoffenheim's win when he capitalized on a slip in the Paloma defence to calmly slot the ball into the bottom corner. The Frenchman's strike proved to be the final action of the match and TSG eased into the next round after an emphatic win.
Oliver Trenchard
USC Paloma Hamburg: Jonas – Kramer, Gersch (Depers 60'), Drews, Lohfeldt – Wegner, Bruckner – Hindersmann, Schiemann (Smith 60'), Krause – Galica (Graf HT).
TSG 1899 Hoffenheim: Baumann – Strobl, Bicakcic, Süle, Kim – Volland (Zuber 70'), Schwegler, Polanski, Elyounoussi – Szalai, Schipplock (Modeste 63').
Goals: Elyounoussi (9'), Bicakcic (17'), Schipplock (18', 28', 33', 45', 53'), Szalai, Modeste.
Yellow cards: Drews, Kramer / Elyounoussi
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