Ipswich Town vs Hoffenheim Prediction: McKenna has to shuffle his cards

At Portman Road Stadium, in the Club Friendlies, Ipswich Town will clash with Hoffenheim. McKenna has to shuffle his cards. Who will have won after 90 minutes?

While the management at Portman Road beavers away behind the scenes in the transfer market, McKenna's squad has mustered a bag of mixed performances in friendlies to tune themselves for their long-awaited return to the top tier of English football. Following up the win of 1-0 against Shakhtar Donetsk, the Tractor Boys entertained Fortuna Dusseldorf on July 27, with Marcus Harness canceling out an early goal from the German second-tier side's Danny Schmidt. But Dusseldorf regained the advantage nine minutes later with a goal from Tim Rossmann, and Ipswich could not turn things around in the final 30 minutes at Portman Road. Although the result disappointed 15,000-strong crowd was disappointed, McKenna felt it had provided his players with valuable experience. They now play Borussia Monchengladbach in Heimstetten, Germany on Friday before playing Hoffenheim the following day, and rounding off their pre-season with a home game against OGC Nice on August 10.

Muric; Johnson, Woolfenden, Greaves, Townsend; Taylor, Luongo; Harness, Chaplin, Ladapo; Hirst

Like Ipswich, Hoffenheim too played an English team in pre-season in the form of Norwich City. It was a two-goal lead by the German team, courtesy of Ihlas Bebou and Marius Bulter, but the Canaries earned a share of the spoils through goals from Jonathan Rowe and Brad Hills. The bad news in the Hoffenheim camp was that David Jurasek sustained an injury and had undergone surgery. This game with Norwich was one in a line of friendlies against English teams, with an upcoming game against Ipswich next before finally facing off against Fulham on August 10, building up to their DFB-Pokal opener against Wurzburger Kickers on August 16.

Philipp; Akpoguma, Szalai, Stach; Kaderabek, Promel, Geiger, Bulter, Bruun Larsen; Kramaric, Bebou

Though Hoffenheim may still be reeling from Jurasek's grave injury, this is a team that has shown time and again it can attack with the best in the Bundesliga. Opponents Ipswich, however, have recently been having some problems in terms of attacking options out wide. This may result in yet another narrow defeat for McKenna and his charges in Austria, depending very much on which side he decides to field in this game and indeed against Monchengladbach next week.