The Ostalb is not a region where too much is promised. You don’t announce anything here that you can’t keep, the big notes are left to those who need it. In this respect, it was remarkable that the promoted team from the Ostalb was convicted of PR fraud even before the first Bundesliga home game in their history. The Ostalb is where it thunders and hails and you still need winter tires in May: That’s what those in charge at 1. FC Heidenheim like to say, and everyone understands what they mean by that. They consider themselves – rightly – to be reasonably weatherproof.
Instead of the announced apocalypse, there was only a disappointing continuous rain this Saturday, which fell from the sky in an amazingly conventional way. It was rain that they probably could have managed at the other 17 Bundesliga locations, maybe that should have made Heidenheimer suspicious before kick-off. After the final whistle they sat or lay on the rain-soaked pitch and understood the world just as little as their coach Frank Schmidt, who later said in the dry press room that he “wasn’t even satisfied with a point” that day. He said that in the face of a 3-2 defeat that gave zero points after a 2-0 lead. Instead, the TSG Hoffenheim players danced in the rain in the East Alb, and they didn’t know exactly why either.
The game was also so difficult for the promoted player to understand because he had otherwise kept every promise he made. The Heidenheimers have been vowing for weeks that they will not change for the Bundesliga either, that they will not do anything fundamentally different than in the second division. In fact, they didn’t stray an inch, they didn’t conduct any experiments in the transfer market and they didn’t try to play a different kind of football than what they can do. On the Ostalb they are used to the fact that you get a return if you don’t spin and work diligently – and that also applied to this home game, but only for 75 minutes. The remaining 15 minutes were enough to turn a deserved home win into an irritating home defeat.
The Bundesliga only learned that day from 1. FC Heidenheim what they already suspected: that a fighting and running team plays brave football here, that they rain corners and free kicks from the sky and even, like that, a cliché correctly said, finds their game. Despite its down-to-earth nature, Heidenheim has become a special milieu in nine years in the second division, in which not only racers, fighters and center forwards who are strong in the air grow, but always one or two interesting figures. The legendary Marc Schnatterer – red-blonde winger with crazy shooting technique – has apparently found a worthy successor in red-blond winger Jan-Niklas Beste, 24, who should bring a few more moments worth seeing to the Bundesliga – such as the free-kick goal shot around the corner to make it 1-0 (26th), in which the Heidenheim weather resistance also manifested itself. In any case, Beste didn’t seem to give a damn at that moment that he had just missed a penalty (16′).
Matarazzo’s move irritates Heidenheim
Well into the second half, it seemed as if the schedule had drawn the Heidenheimers an ideal opponent for their first home game. The quite talented guest eleven initially ignored their talent by showing off their typical Hoffenheim If-we-win-then-we-are-happy-and-if-not-well-well-then-not-football. When Heidenheim’s Marvin Pieringer made it 2-0 in the 58th minute with a classic Heidenheim goal (Best’s corner, header, inside), it always seemed to be enough for the first three points – until Hoffenheim’s coach Pellegrino Matarazzo scored a few of the less weatherproof artists from the Heidenheim rain redeemed.
“Definitely yes,” Matarazzo later replied to the flattering question of whether Hoffenheim’s victory came from the bench. In three time windows (54th, 64th, 74th), the TSG coach made five changes and brought in the talents Maximilian Beier and Finn Ole Becker, who scored a goal (Beier, 2: 1) and assisted for the 2 2: 2 (Kaderabek after Becker shot the post) and 2: 3 (Kramaric after a penalty after a foul on Beier) – but above all Matarazzo confused Heidenheim with the changes.
Heidenheim will go to Dortmund next week
His team needed some time to adjust to the opponent’s constant position and system changes, said Frank Schmidt afterwards. He had to watch as his Heidenheimers were no longer Heidenheim for a moment, how they retreated, first losing their courage and then temporarily losing track. A week ago, 0-2 in Wolfsburg, the Heidenheimers received some mean lessons about the pace in this new league and now, a week later, they had the pace under control. In return, they learned something about concentration and efficiency at the right moment.
This is content that is not measurable and difficult to train, but can only be experienced – and so Frank Schmidt and his Heidenheim team, who have been beaten far below their value, will have no choice but to look forward to next Friday. There they play for the first time in their lives in front of the black and yellow wall in Dortmund.
2023-08-27 15:23:30
#Heidenheim #Bundesliga #weatherproof #minutes
