Eleven games without a win
©IMAGO
Coach Frank Schmidt has little hope of his 1. FC Heidenheim remaining in the Bundesliga and is assuming relegation after three years in the first division. After the bottom team’s deserved 2-0 defeat at SV Werder Bremen, who were also in danger of relegation, the 52-year-old didn’t sugarcoat anything.
“In the end, we clearly underlined today that we cannot avoid saying that our path – as of today – leads to the 2nd league,” said Schmidt after his team’s weak performance in the Weserstadion. He calculated why his hope had vanished. “We would have to catch up on average more points than we got on average after 24 match days,” said Schmidt. That’s why it wouldn’t be right to say, “The faith is unbroken. Hope won’t get you very far in football anyway.” The game in Bremen was such a step backwards that they had to deal with relegation “and now have a lot of time to prepare for the 2nd league”.
After the eleventh game without a win, the Heidenheim team, with 14 points, is already eight points behind the relegation place, where the Bremen team has advanced at least until Sunday after their first success after 13 games. With Heidenheim’s points tally at this point in the season, no club has managed to stay in the league since the introduction of the three-point rule. What makes things even more difficult for FCH is their worst goal difference of 31 goals.
Heidenheim: Ex-Bremer Dinkci frustrated with Werder’s performance
The performance in the Weserstadion also gave no reason for hope. “I had the feeling that we only made mistakes,” said the Bremen native and former Werder player Eren Dinkçi self-critically. “Everyone who had the ball was left alone.” Not everyone fought for the individual. “We finally have to be brave and have more balls in our pants to play football,” demanded the offensive man on loan from SC Freiburg. “We are in a situation where we have nothing left to lose.”
