KEY POINTS:
Think Putaruru, population 3700. Now think of Putaruru putting together a football team who play so well they head the German Bundesliga, one of the most competitive leagues in the world, complete with powerhouses like Bayern Munich, coached by German legend Jurgen Klinsmann.
Ridiculous, isn't it? Yet that is exactly what TSG 1899 Hoffenheim have done - a tiny village in south-west Germany of about the same size as Putaruru whose football team lead the Bundesliga going into the winter break and who are on course for the Champions League.
Until 1992, Hoffenheim were an amateur club playing in the Kreisliga A - in England, the equivalent is the Unibond League, the British Gas League and the Ryman League. Hoffenheim's leap up the divisions - surely the most remarkable in world football - is a result of investment by a local man who played more than 200 games for Hoffenheim.
It started in 1990 when Dietmar Hopp, billionaire owner of software company SAP, began putting money into a trust for the club. So far he has pumped in more than 150 million ($370 million).
If you think this is a team of big-money stars, put together by some obsessed tsar (hi Chelsea, how's it going?), that's not it either.
They have resisted a major spending spree, even after winning promotion to the top flight. Strikers Chinedu Obasi, Demba Ba and
Bosnia's Vedad Ibisevic, who have a combined total of 31 league goals this season, were all playing in the second division last year.
Their biggest signing so far has been former Germany international keeper Timo Hildebrand, who joined this month after a luckless spell at Spanish club Valencia. "We never looked for a star," Hopp says. "The fact that a star has found his way to us on favourable terms does not mean our strategy changes."
According to London's Observer newspaper, Hoffenheim worked their way up the ladder, and back-to-back promotions took them into Bundesliga I last summer. Now, 18 years since Hopp's arrival, his club show no sign of heading back in the other direction and are building a new home fit for kings. They already hold the title of Herbstmeister - halfway champions - after a 1-1 draw with major club Schalke 04.
The average age of the first team is under 23. They play exciting, attacking football under the leadership of head coach Ralf Rangnick, an anglophile who is a great admirer and friend of Arsène Wenger.
"It would be an absolute sensation if we do this," Rangnick, told the Observer, after being asked if Hoffenheim could win the Bundesliga and create a chapter in modern sport that would surely be incomparable.
However, they have caused some bitter jealousy from rival supporters.
"There's a lot of hatred because a lot of them think our success is just down to money," Hopp says. "The fact is, however, I've invested five times as much money in the infrastructure - youth development centres, playing fields, the stadium and training centre - as I have in the professional football team."
Abuse aimed at Hopp includes chanting over his parentage and, as at a recent game, using an image of his head as a target.
Seriously rich men owning and controlling clubs are common but, unlike the billionaire foreigners in the Premier League, Hopp is the local boy who played many times for his beloved team.
"Ever since I was young, I've been a keen player," says the 68-year-old, whose fortune from the software firm he co-founded in 1972 is about 1 billion. "At 14, I started playing in the youth team. At 17, I was given special medical permission to play in the first team - back then, the football association only allowed players under 18 to play if a doctor confirmed that there was no medical reason why they shouldn't. I don't know exactly but I'd say I played more than 200 games. I always really enjoyed it. And when I was at university in Karlsruhe, I was selected for the first team."
Hopp also told the Observer: "I grew up in Hoffenheim and have always maintained a strong connection to the place. In 1990, the success of SAP enabled me to start providing financial support. At that time, the club was playing in the local community league and I mainly helped the youth teams."
In 2005 Hopp came close to merging Hoffenheim with two other local clubs and basing the new team in nearby Heidelberg. Local planners were against the idea, though.
"So we built the stadium in Sinsheim," Hopp says, "and to our surprise we have still gained a great number of supporters. That is due in no small part to the fact that we see ourselves as the club for the whole of the Rhein-Neckar metropolitan region. Of course, our team's very attractive and entertaining playing style has also won us a lot of fans."
In 2006, Hopp made the final push by recruiting Rangnick, a former Schalke, Hannover and VfB Stuttgart coach.
"At that time he was still putting money in but not as much as now," Rangnick said. "What he had been trying to do was the same as many clubs - bring in experienced, expensive players. He was looking for a big solution. I told him that we wanted to look for younger players from the start.
"We realised after two or three months that we needed Francisco
Copado [a 34-year-old midfielder] and other older players. After the promotion to league two, we said, 'now we completely concentrate on the younger ones.'
"We only looked for players aged between 17 and 23. The oldest we've signed in the last three years was Per Nilsson [a Swedish defender]. He was 24. All the others we signed were 19, 20, 21."
In all, around 20 million was spent last season, an investment that Rangnick felt no need to match this summer, such was his confidence in his players' ability.
"With those youngsters, you have to let them run. If you play defensively with a young team it is a contradiction. Young players have many advantages. They learn faster, listen, can cope with the intensity of training. Young players also know that they need team spirit, and need trust and confidence from us.
"The average age of the squad is 22-and-a-half. We have only four defeats, which is absolutely unbelievable. The progress in recent months is outstanding."
Among the recruits was 23-year-old defender Marvin Compper, Hoffenheim's first Germany international who made his debut against England in October. There is also the Bundesliga's top scorer, Ibisevic, a 24-year-old Bosnia striker with 18 goals so far. Obasi, a 22-year-old Nigerian, is challenging Bayern Munich's Franck
Ribéry as the Bundesliga's best performer this season.
"It was a tough decision," Obasi says of his move from Lyn Oslo in Norway, where he had played with his best friend, Chelsea's John Obi Mikel. "I'd never heard of Hoffenheim. When I got a call and they were in the second division in Germany it was difficult because my agent wasn't really buying the idea.
"But the trainer told me what the team wanted to achieve, and I wanted to be part of it."
Hoffenheim are top goal scorers in the league. They were unlucky to lose 2-1 to champions Bayern in Munich. Bayern featured Ribéry, Champions League winner Marc van Bommel, and Luca Toni, who won the last World Cup with Italy. Hoffenheim also have the second best defensive record, with 22 conceded.
Asked to explain the club's performance, Rangnick named four key areas: the primacy of young players, a long-term vision, an emphasis on man-management and his role as the sole leader of the club.
"Leading the team emotionally is key, rather than just giving commandments. I've been with Arsenal twice - two-and-a-half and four years ago - in their pre-season training camp in
Austria. There you could see Arsène. Of course he's the boss. But there are staff around who give his players the chance to develop.
"Finally, it's a different system here than in England where, in the big clubs at least, the manager is strong.
"In Germany you have the head coach, but also at least two other strong figures. It is only us and maybe Wolfsburg, with Felix Magath, who have the manager system."
Hopp, who Rangnick says visits the dressing room only after victory and never interferes in team matters, said his
hopes for this season have changed as Rangnick and his team continue to astound.
"Our goal was simply to avoid relegation," Hopp told the Observer. "But we've become more ambitious, although I would be happy if we were in the top eight."
He conceded that he cannot continue indefinitely to support the club and Rangnick understands the importance of stabilising their position.
"In the last two years it was very much because of Mr Hopp, and the club's future still depends on him.
"Should we qualify for Europe, whether it be Champions League or Uefa Cup, it'll be difficult to stay there over the next three or four years. And, to keep our players and bring in new ones, I still strongly believe we need him."
Hopp is passionate about Hoffenheim and appears unlikely to walk away soon. There is an element of co-dependency in the relationship between owner and club, because of the Bundesliga rule that members own 51 per cent of a club. Hopp's deal is "essentially based on trust. The investments I've made, the loans, are not guaranteed. But as long as the team continues to do well this is not something I need to worry about. I own the stadium and the training centre, both of which are rented by the club at a good market rate.
"I've known all the officials at TSG 1899 since I was a boy. That's why it's not a problem for me that an investor can't become the majority shareholder in a football club." "
Says Rangnick: "We have this discussion if we should get rid of the 51 per cent rule. But many traditionalists are afraid to have a situation like Manchester City, where a sheikh comes and buys Borussia Dortmund or Bayern. On the other hand I think everybody would love to have somebody like Dietmar Hopp with the same ambitions as the club."
