Football – Heidenheim is shaking before the biggest game in the club’s history

A bit of self-irony is good form on the Ostalb, and that’s why the Heidenheimers joked before the biggest game in their club’s history that some professionals from the world club Chelsea FC probably don’t even know where this Heidenheim with its 15,000-seat stadium is actually located on the map. In fact, there is even a top game in the Conference League there this Thursday. The sixth in the table welcomes the first, both have collected nine points from the first three games, the Londoners have the better goal difference.

1. FC Heidenheim is challenging Chelsea in the European Cup: What sounds like a joke is now becoming reality. This will probably only really be realized when the time comes, said CEO Holger Sanwald before the game. Coach Frank Schmidt, an exceptional figure in professional football with his 17 years in office, also described reaching the Conference League as “unbelievable”. Now there is a comparison of completely different worlds, two clubs and teams that got into this competition on unusual paths: Heidenheim as a Bundesliga newcomer, Chelsea as a six-time English champion and two-time Champions League winner as a perceived relegation.

The contrasts are also made clear by looking at the squad. The London team’s kicking workforce is estimated to have a market value of 963 million euros, while at FCH it is 63 million euros. And while Chelsea, with its global network, conducts a brisk trade with players from all over the world, a father and his son at Heidenheim are looking for reinforcements. Peter Baamann and his son Dennis look for German-speaking players on a part-time basis from Friday to Sunday, mainly in the second and third leagues. The two Heidenheim scouts have recently been supported by a student.

This is also part of this impressive Heidenheim success story, which tells of how a club and the region’s medium-sized businesses came together and rose step by step, while maintaining the family structure. When Sanwald took over as department manager in the state league 29 years ago, there was a petting zoo with sheep and goats behind what is now the main stand. And when Sanwald brought the defender and ex-professional Schmidt back home around two decades ago, Heidenheim played in the association league before being promoted to the top league with captain Schmidt. Schmidt took over as coach in 2007, and further promotions to the third division (2009), second division (2014) and Bundesliga (2023) followed via the regional league. And now even the European Cup.

However, the historic highlight against Chelsea comes in a difficult phase. In the Bundesliga, Heidenheim have only gotten one point from their last six games and have slipped to 15th place. They were also eliminated from the DFB Cup by second division team Hertha BSC. Kevin Müller, who has been guarding Heidenheim’s goal since 2015 and is the longest-serving professional in the squad, thinks they never played really badly, “but somehow something is missing.”

People have been “spoiled in the last few years because it always felt like it was only going in one direction. And everyone thinks it will just continue like this. “Don’t do it,” said cult coach Schmidt recently. But for him this is only an even greater incentive. He put it this way: »The wind is currently blowing more from the front than from behind in recent years. But I love this challenge.«

Schmidt doesn’t believe in exaggerations anyway, which is why he objectively looks ahead to the biggest game in the club’s history. The 50-year-old expects a difficult game against Chelsea, after all, the Londoners are “a top team that has high quality.” But, said Schmidt, the game was “also a chance to turn things a little in the other direction again. And we will try to use that.”