Sebastian Hoeneß praises Angelo Stiller ahead of Hoffenheim’s visit to Bayern Munich this weekend

Bayern Munich will get a shot at revenge this weekend when TSG Hoffenheim visits the Allianz Arena on Saturday. Hoffenheim was one of two teams that has been able to beat Bayern so far this season, as they stunned Hansi Flick and company in September with a 4-1 win at the Rhein-Neckar-Arena.

This clash also now has more than one subplot in addition to Sebastian Hoeneß having been employed by Bayern prior to accepting the manager’s role at Hoffenheim. Angelo Stiller recently completed a deal to move to Hoffenheim this summer from Bayern’s reserve squad. He’s made two appearances in the senior squad for Bayern this season and has showed plenty of promise in Holger Seitz’s reserve side in the 3. Liga.

Photo by Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images

In a recent report from kicker, Sebastian Hoeneß praised Stiller and expressed his excitement to have him join Hoffenheim’s ranks this summer.

“I know him very well, but he was also known in the club,” Hoeneß said. “I can judge him down to the smallest detail. As a central midfielder, he has incredible strategic skills. He can read a game and is able to dictate a game from the sixth position. He has a fine left foot and can also use players further up front.”.

The timing of the announcement for Stiller to join Hoffenheim was also interesting. Hoeneß had been coming under increased pressure because Hoffenheim had gone on a seven-match winless streak from the beginning of December to the middle of January including their penalty shootout loss to SpVgg Greuther Fürth in the DFB-Pokal and a 4-0 loss to last-placed Schalke 04.

There was speculation that Stiller would choose against a move to Sinsheim for fear of Hoeneß losing his job prior to the season ending, but Hoeneß had convinced Stiller that it shouldn’t really matter.

“Such a decision should always be made independently of people,” Hoeneß said.

To say there’s some bad blood between Bayern and Hoffenheim might be a stretch, but there’s certainly been some grievances between the two clubs recently. Hoffenheim was aggravated over the summer when Bayern wound up signing Armindo Sieb and Mamin Sanyang on free transfers from Hoffenheim’s U-17 ranks.

Those moves came just after their U-19 captain Amadou Onana had joined Hamburg SV. Frank Briel, Hoffenheim’s managing director, had been critical of Bayern poaching their starlets, saying that while it might be good business for Bayern, it winds up hurting other teams in the Bundesliga, cutting off their ability to further develop their youth talents themselves.