Big Shots Beware

Staring next season TSG 1899 Hoffenheim will be playing in the German second division against the likes of Borussia Mönchengladbach, Kaiserslautern and Cologne, who have won a total of 12 German league titles between them.

Hoffenheim on Saturday clinched promotion from the regional third division to complete a further chapter in the success story of Germany's "richest village team," as the club has been dubbed.

As a sort of Chelsea of the German lower divisions, Hoffenheim have big money behind them, and a patron like the wealthy London club's Roman Abramovich with ambitions to match the finance.

SAP chief invests in local club

Dietmar Hopp, 67, one of the co-founders of the software giant SAP, is one of German's richest men. He also scored quite a few goals in his youth in the blue and white of his local club until he left the village in southern Germany in his early 20s.

Now that promotion to the second division has been achieved, the next stage in an ambitious plan can be tackled: to get the team into the top-flight Bundesliga.

"We want to be a factor in the second division," said Hopp on Saturday. "The aim is getting into the Bundesliga in three to five years."

New stadium on the way

The dream of Bayern Munich, Schalke 04 or Werder Bremen visiting Hoffenheim is not pie in the sky for Hopp, who is building a new 40-million-euro ($54-million) stadium with a capacity of 30,000 spectators to be ready by 2009.

The current Dietmar Hopp Stadium -- which only dates back to 1999 -- is in the meantime being extended to take 6,350 spectators. If necessary, the team will also be able to play home games at Karlsruhe's Wildparkstadion.

Hopp, who is a golfing buddy of German playing great Franz Beckenbauer, has gone about the reformation of the club in a thoroughly professional manner.

Only the best for Hoffenheim

Former Bayern player Hansi Flick -- now co-trainer of the German national team -- coached the side to promotion to the regional league in 2001, and this season Hopp has Ralf Rangnick, former coach of Hanover, Stuttgart and Schalke, in charge on a five-year contract.

And Rangnick has very clear goals for his team.

"That was the first step," Rangnick said. "The second is the new stadium. The third is promotion into the Bundesliga."

There is also plenty of other expertise at the club including the German national team psychologist Hans-Dieter Hermann and Bernhard Peters, the man who led the German hockey team to the world title last September.

Peters, who was wanted last year by former Germany coach Jürgen Klinsmann as technical director for the national team, now has just that role for Hoffenheim, with responsibility for sport and youth development.

"As far as youth development goes Hoffenheim is ahead of many a Bundesliga club," praised Klinsmann, who has close contacts with Hopp.

Targets, performance, return

Hopp sets great store in developing talent to ensure that the Hoffenheim project is a lasting one. He has invested millions in training centers, and all the club's teams are doing well in their respective leagues.

"We want to realize a project that is unique in Germany," Hopp said, falling back on the manager-speak that rules his day job. "In the long-term we want to develop our own talent."

The rise to the top has not been without its critics, and there are clubs who are struggling financially who may be justified in feeling envious of Hoffenheim's possibilities.

Recently FC Ingolstadt coach Juergen Press, in a spat with Rangnick, said that "every Verbandsliga (fifth division) coach would achieve promotion with this team of professionals."

However Rangnick believes life will be much easier for the club now that it has reached the second division.

"No longer will we be accused of being the millionaires of the regional league," he said. "In the second division we can take on the role of being the sympathetic village team."