Marked for Jan Schöppner
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for Heidenheim
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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Dec 2026
A bad afternoon for Heidenheim against Köln
0‑1 to Köln, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Dec 2026
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad14 Dec 2026
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 dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Tobias Fischer to a room that had heard them before.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Too much change too quickly at Heidenheim
6 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 dugout14 Dec 2026
A promise honoured for Luca Kerber
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Heidenheim told Luca Kerber something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
Patrick Mainka 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Dec 2026
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Match5 Dec 2026
A point taken on 93 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marnon Busch, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Romeo Vermant has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Enzo Ruiz and Heidenheim agree another 1 years.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Jan Schöppner has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Heidenheim will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Match5 Dec 2026
It needed Marvin Pieringer to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against SC Freiburg, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match21 Nov 2026
0‑3 against VfB Stuttgart, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Paul Hennrich, 21, steals the show — 7.68
Marked 7.68 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Lars Ritzka 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 dugout23 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The terraces23 Nov 2026
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.12, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Market23 Nov 2026
Adrian Beck told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Adrian Beck has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Heidenheim.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 7.61 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Match7 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Heidenheim's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Heidenheim has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Patrick Mainka 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 dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Tim Siersleben
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Gerrit Gohlke and Heidenheim agree another 3 years.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Marvin Pieringer dropped after a run of poor form
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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Romeo Vermant knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Heidenheim, and both men came out saying it was fine.