Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Borussia Dortmund lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Borussia Dortmund will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Julian Brandt was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
SquadSilas Huber is a better footballer than he was
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Heidenheim have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Hamburger SV paid $4.6M and Heidenheim took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Heidenheim is running low.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
SquadFrank Feller is a better footballer than he was
SquadBenedikt Gimber falls out with a teammate over standards
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heidenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
In brief
SquadWords at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
The words a physio says slowly. 59 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The words a physio says slowly. 84 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Borussia Dortmund will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
In brief
SquadGregor Kobel falls out with a teammate over standards
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heidenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
92 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heidenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 99 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Heidenheim are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Stefan Schneider clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
A mark of 8.60 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Frank Schäfer recited it perfectly.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
A brace, and Tiago Tomás takes the afternoon — 7.85
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tiago Tomás provided it, and the 7.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Arijon Ibrahimović did not need any: 7.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer from Valerenga for Frank Feller was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tiago Tomás. 2‑1 against FC Augsburg, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I watch every Heidenheim game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Arzignano runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Stefan Schneider has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Heidenheim is running low.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
RB Leipzig left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Arijon Ibrahimović did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Tiago Tomás will call it something else in private.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
13 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Köln have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Omar Traoré. The answer from Heidenheim has not changed — yet.
VfL Wolfsburg left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Heidenheim told Jan Schöppner something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Tiago Tomás arrives from VfB Stuttgart with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
1‑4 to Union Berlin, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The offer from VfL Wolfsburg for Budu Zivzivadze was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Heidenheim have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.70, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Boardroom11 Jan 2027
Nobody left the Heidenheim dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Frank Feller has come up in conversations Heidenheim were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Heidenheim has been clear about where Jonas Föhrenbach stands, which is more than many ever get.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Heidenheim are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Leonidas Stergiou has come out of that comparison in the side, and Heidenheim have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. SC Freiburg defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
In brief
Player ratingsPatrick Mainka spends the afternoon fouling
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Arijon Ibrahimović did not need any: 8.32, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
It is the quietest kind of dressing-room problem and the one that lasts longest, because nobody has done anything anyone can be disciplined for. 4 players sit outside all 5 groups entirely, which is the detail that tends to matter.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Eren Dinkçi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Heidenheim and RB Leipzig, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Heidenheim dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Marked 5.68. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
In brief
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Sirlord Conteh
0‑3 against Bayern Munich, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Heidenheim can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Heidenheim can tell you which week it ends in.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Borussia Dortmund? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
The offer from Werder Bremen for Luca Kerber was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
4 academy players handed senior numbers at Heidenheim
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marcel Böhm is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Benjamin Bauer has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Heidenheim has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Frank Feller has come up in conversations Heidenheim were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leart Paçarada is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Diant Ramaj was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.