Hoffenheim heartache after Schick hat-trick lifts Leverkusen to fourth | Andy Brassell

Positions fourth to sixth are separated by goal difference as Hoffenheim rue being out of the Champions League spots

“This is perhaps the most difficult moment of my career.” It was not, it is fair to say, what Andrei Kramaric had expected on a day – and a week – that was going along like a dream. Two days after he had extended his expiring contract for two years at “my second home”, Hoffenheim’s all-time record scorer had dragged them even closer to a surprise return to the Champions League, scoring goals 157 and 158 for the club on a sunny afternoon with the mood of celebration in the air, as they dominated direct rivals Stuttgart. But in the 95th minute, up popped the visitors’ Tiago Tomás out of nowhere to shatter it all. In the race for the top four in the Bundesliga, life comes at you fast.

One could understand Kramaric’s difficulties in absorbing what had just happened. When he left the field in stoppage time to the warm applause of the PreZero Arena Hoffenheim were in fourth position, the (likely) final Champions League spot which they have worked so hard to recover in recent weeks after a big wobble either side of Easter. By the time that the Croatia striker got comfy on the bench his team had seen their lead improbably evaporate, and when he sat down for dinner they were in sixth, following Bayer Leverkusen’s 4-1 demolition of RB Leipzig in the early evening Topspiel.

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