The Heidenheim Chronicle
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$21.3M settles it between the clubs for Tim Lemperle
TSG Hoffenheim have accepted the money. What Heidenheim do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Market10 Aug 2026
TSG Hoffenheim come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Heidenheim did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Heidenheim rebuffed over Nathan Tella
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayer Leverkusen have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Lars Ritzka would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lars Ritzka is living that version at Heidenheim, and it tends to show in the first month.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Heidenheim bid $550.0K for Tidiam Gomis
The offer went to RB Leipzig this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Patrick Mainka signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Patrick Mainka and Heidenheim agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Heidenheim
Budu Zivzivadze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mathias Honsak falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Market10 Aug 2026
Heidenheim promote Marco Klein from within
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marco Klein has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
In brief
- Market One of our own: Jürgen König joins the Heidenheim first team
- Market Markus Heinrich steps up from the Heidenheim academy
- The dugout Patrick Mainka knocks on the manager's door