15		VfL Wolfsburg	13	3	3	7	17	23	-6	12	WXLL	7	1	2	4	10	15	6	2	1	3	7	8
	16		1.FC Heidenheim	13	3	2	8	12	28	-16	11	WWLL	7	2	2	3	8	13	6	1	0	5	4	15
	17		St.Pauli	13	2	2	9	11	25	-14	8	XLLL	6	1	1	4	6	14	7	1	1	5	5	11
	18		FSV Mainz 05	13	1	3	9	11	24	-13	6	LLXL	7	0	2	5	5	11	6	1	1	4	6	13

 

This game makes the old " two struggling teams meeting= goals" equation I am fond of repeating. The hosts have finally found some goals, with four in their last three starts, all of which were played on the road and two against strong teams. They now desperately need to take that into home games and three points would take them above Heidenheim and into the playoff spot, which is big motivation. The problem is that they have only scored 16 goals in 23 home games since promotion, so whilst this game is the "type" to produce goals, are they up to the task ? The visitors have awoken from their slumber and have won their last two starts, both by the same 2-1 scoreline, away at Union Berlin and home to Freiburg. They kept faith with head coach Frank Sscmidt which I guess is no surprise, he is only 51yo, but became the longest serving German head coach ever in September 2023 and continues to set new records, having been in the job since 2007. He has led them to four promotions and a first ever Bundesliga and European season and it is an incredible story for man and club.

 

Prior to their start to the season I touched upon this .....

 

Heidenheim have spent the last two seasons in the top flight, the first in their history and they finished 8th and 16th. Incredibly, in that first season they qualified for a debut European campaign and that was always going to make their second domestic campaign difficult and it did !Despite selling out their tiny stadium each home game, they are the smallest club in the Bundesliga and by some way and even without European football, it is another long season in prospect. XP saw them as a little better but still the lowest of the teams that survived. Only a couple of youthful loans from bigger clubs and they do have to operate on a shoestring. 

 

They earned 18/29 points and scored 24/37 goals on the road last season, which included a 2-0 win in this stadium and if I asked the same question about them (see above) in relation to being able to score enough to win this, I guess my answer would be yes, or at least more likely than St Pauli.

 

It was hard not to be impressed by FCH last weekend, they had three really good chances to take the lead and then conceded the opening goal of the game shortly before the break with the first real chance that Freiburg created and that might have broken some teams, maybe Heidenheim a few weeks ago. However, FCH continuted to give maximum effort in every challenge (they were relentless) and got just reward, the winner came very late, but they might have had three goals by that stage in any case. 

 

 

Good luck!