A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Heidenheim have done the hard part with VfB Stuttgart, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$710.0K on the table at SC Paderborn. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Heidenheim offered $910.0K; TSG Hoffenheim said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Younes Ebnoutalib was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $17.1M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayern Munich have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Eintracht Frankfurt 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Heidenheim have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer went to TSG Hoffenheim 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.
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.
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 unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Adrian Beck is somebody else's player now, and $466.7K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Márcio Guimarães clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Heidenheim and VfB Stuttgart have settled on $3.8M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
$11.1M on the table at Mainz 05. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“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; Maximilian Sommer recited it perfectly.
$530.0K on the table at Karlsruher SC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Márcio Guimarães leaves with $645.7K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
Michael Heule and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad29 May 2028
6 new faces, and Heidenheim are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Heidenheim. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Heidenheim could ask drops and the wages Thomas Keller can ask rise.
Luca Reggiani has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Paul Hennrich has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Márcio Guimarães on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Successful dribbles: 13. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Heidenheim are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
In brief
SquadLeart Kabashi is the weekend's best young player
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Heidenheim they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
16 shut-outs in 28 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Frank Feller has been having a lot of them.
Michael Heule 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 ratings8 May 2028
Eren Dinkçi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Heidenheim pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
He is 20, and nobody at Heidenheim signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Tim Siersleben has come out of that comparison in the side, and Heidenheim have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Patrick Mainka and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Paul Hennrich trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout1 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Márcio Guimarães chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
0‑1 to Kaiserslautern, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Márcio Guimarães left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jonas Föhrenbach’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Heidenheim needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.83 for the rest of it.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Julian Niehues’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Heidenheim.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Márcio Guimarães, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Kaiserslautern in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Heidenheim, another week without a signature from Husseyn Chakroun.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Heidenheim is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
28 appearances at Vojvodina and the goals have stopped going in. Heidenheim lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Holstein Kiel were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Michael Heule 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Paul Hennrich has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A 1‑0 win over Holstein Kiel, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.31 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“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.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Eren Dinkçi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Heidenheim told Eren Dinkçi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Darmstadt 98 in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Heidenheim have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Žan Celar.
Something was said to Julian Niehues and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Heidenheim is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Loan watch13 Mar 2028
Frank Feller’s loan is measured in nothing happening
16 clean sheets from 28 appearances at Vojvodina. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
A point taken on 86 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.
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.
Michael Heule and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad6 Mar 2028
5 new faces, and Heidenheim are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad6 Mar 2028
A place in the month's best eleven for Mario Soberón
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Mario Soberón has come out of that comparison in the side, and Heidenheim have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
3 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument Heidenheim will have this month.
“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.
12 combined actions and 7.10. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Márcio Guimarães after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Michael Heule trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Christian Conteh’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Heidenheim needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. RB Leipzig have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Minute 91, against Preußen Münster, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Christian Conteh, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Márcio Guimarães was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Heidenheim dressing room was either.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
7 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
In brief
The dugoutMichael Heule knocks on the manager's door
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thomas Keller will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Heidenheim the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Thomas Keller has agreed terms with Nürnberg for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Loan watch14 Feb 2028
Frank Feller’s loan is measured in nothing happening
16 clean sheets from 27 appearances at Vojvodina. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Heidenheim asked and VfB Stuttgart said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
11 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and FC Augsburg were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The phone has started ringing about Stefan Schimmer again, and this time the name on the line is Union Berlin. Heidenheim are listening politely and promising nothing.
15 shut-outs in 26 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Frank Feller has been having a lot of them.
Heidenheim asked and Borussia Dortmund said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
11 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 has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
$64.0K on the table at FC Augsburg. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
25 appearances at Vojvodina and the goals have stopped going in. Heidenheim lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
The phone has started ringing about Adam Kölle again, and this time the name on the line is Holstein Kiel. Heidenheim are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Tim Siersleben
RB Leipzig arrived with $16.0M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with SC Paderborn the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Heidenheim will enjoy reviewing.
Marvin Pieringer has gone, the accounts have $16.0M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Borussia Dortmund have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 20 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.
In brief
Loan watch13 clean sheets on loan for Frank Feller
Player ratingsPaul Hennrich beats them one at a time
The offer from Union Berlin for Stefan Schimmer 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Heidenheim have done the hard part with Basel, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The phone has started ringing about Thomas Keller again, and this time the name on the line is Nürnberg. Heidenheim are listening politely and promising nothing.
Michael Heule 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.
23 appearances at Vojvodina and the goals have stopped going in. Heidenheim lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Michael Heule
The offer from Nürnberg for Thomas Keller 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.
The phone has started ringing about Stefan Schimmer again, and this time the name on the line is Union Berlin. Heidenheim are listening politely and promising nothing.
Half the programme played, position 9, 24 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Fabian Herbers commits to Heidenheim for another 1 years.
Loan watch10 Jan 2028
Frank Feller’s loan is measured in nothing happening
11 clean sheets from 22 appearances at Vojvodina. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugoutMichael Heule asks for a word with the manager
75Edition
The Heidenheim Chronicle
3 Jan 2028
From our football correspondentUneasy
The terraces3 Jan 2028
The mood at Heidenheim has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The offer from RB Leipzig for Marvin Pieringer 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
Michael Heule and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Heidenheim asked and Schalke 04 said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Heidenheim know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Shots: 5. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Heidenheim will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
14 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.
Marked 6.84 on 14 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
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 dugout20 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Márcio Guimarães was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Heidenheim dressing room was either.
Successful dribbles: 12. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
22 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
18 appearances at Vojvodina and the goals have stopped going in. Heidenheim lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
30 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 has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Patrick Mainka and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
“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.
Loan watch6 Dec 2027
Frank Feller’s loan is measured in nothing happening
10 clean sheets from 17 appearances at Vojvodina. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
2 games now in a shape the manager was not using a month ago. Changing a formation is easy and keeping one is not, which is why the second of those is the part that tells you something.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Michael Heule 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 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.
16 appearances at Vojvodina and the goals have stopped going in. Heidenheim lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Márcio Guimarães after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Michael Heule trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marvin Pieringer. 1‑0 against Arminia Bielefeld, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Marvin Pieringer has come out of that comparison in the side, and Heidenheim have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Márcio Guimarães kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Something was said to Mario Soberón and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Sander Tangvik 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.
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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Paul Hennrich has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“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.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Márcio Guimarães, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Max O'Leary trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Stefan Schimmer
Looking aheadHeidenheim take on the side everybody is chasing
63Edition
The Heidenheim Chronicle
11 Oct 2027
From our football correspondentSteady
The terraces11 Oct 2027
The mood at Heidenheim has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
24 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.
Michael Heule and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Heidenheim, another week without a signature from Stefan Schimmer.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Julian Niehues trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marvin Pieringer signs something — a contract at Heidenheim or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Preußen Münster next, and one man in the Heidenheim dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marvin Pieringer. 1‑0 against Magdeburg, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Heidenheim, another week without a signature from Husseyn Chakroun.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Márcio Guimarães on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Nothing was announced, because nothing ever is. The team sheet simply stopped looking the way it did, 4 matches ago, and it has not looked that way since. Every supporter noticed in the same week and none of them were told.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Paul Hennrich could not do
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
SV Elversberg go through and Heidenheim go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
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.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Márcio Guimarães to a room that had heard them before.
“I have supported clubs like this one. I know what a bad Saturday feels like here.” The new man starts with nothing behind him and everything in front of him.
48 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
5 out, and the manager is picking from what is left rather than from what he wanted. Seasons are not lost in the treatment room, but they are rarely won from it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Paul Hennrich has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
7.65, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Fabian Herbers has, at Heidenheim, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
64 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Everything agreed with FC Villefranche, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer went to Karlsruher SC 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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 20 arrived, 17 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The name of Stefan Schimmer has come up in conversations Heidenheim were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
36 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
71 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heidenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Heidenheim have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Heidenheim offered $1.9M; TSG Hoffenheim said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
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.
In brief
Boardroom2 academy graduates step up at Heidenheim
The words a physio says slowly. 79 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The offer went to Liverpool 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
$9.2M was the most the club would pay and Union Berlin were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Heidenheim asked and Bayern Munich said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
87 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Add another name to the list: IMT have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Leart Paçarada. The answer from Heidenheim has not changed — yet.
Heidenheim asked and Werder Bremen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Heidenheim, another week without a signature from Michael Heule.
The words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
8 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.
Michael Heule 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Leart Paçarada has his answer from Heidenheim; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Friedrich Lange clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
103 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
9 seasons and 333 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Heidenheim hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Borussia Dortmund have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The offer from IMT for Leart Paçarada 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jan Schöppner signs something — a contract at Heidenheim or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
120 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heidenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee is $3.8M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Hannover 96 drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer went to Hamburger SV 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.
Husseyn Chakroun was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $3.8M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Werder Bremen have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
127 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The deal with Hannover 96 is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sassuolo keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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 approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad12 Jul 2027
7 new faces, and Heidenheim are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
134 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.
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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Friedrich Lange has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Castellón keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Heidenheim will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Julian Niehues
141 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Heidenheim have lost him in all but the paperwork.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Michael Heule and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“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 words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Borussia Dortmund paid $8.7M 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.
Mikkel Kaufmann has gone, the accounts have $8.7M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Hertha BSC paid $2.5M 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matías Kranevitter and Heidenheim agree another 2 years.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The arithmetic ran out, and everybody could see it coming from a distance. The hard summer starts now, and next season's fixtures will be full of unfamiliar names.
23 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Heidenheim have done the hard part with Hamburger SV, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
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.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Patrick Mainka and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout24 May 2027
Josip Stanišić is playing like a man with something to prove
The oldest phenomenon in the sport: a new voice in the dressing room and suddenly everybody is available for everything. Josip Stanišić is training as though the last team sheet never existed, because as far as he is concerned it does not.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Max O'Leary has written the date down.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Adam Kölle trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 21 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.97 for the rest of it.
39 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.
“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.
Boardroom10 May 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.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Tobias Möller left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
“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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marvin Pieringer. 2‑1 against SC Freiburg, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Heidenheim know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ihlas Bebou 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Heidenheim, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Tobias Möller on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutMax O'Leary knocks on the manager's door
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Michael Heule and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Adrian Beck has his answer from Heidenheim; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Tobias Möller after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marvin Pieringer signs something — a contract at Heidenheim or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
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 Möller to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.71 for the rest of it.
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.
Michael Heule and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Tobias Möller to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Max O'Leary
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heidenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Alessandro Vogt has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A 1‑0 win over TSG Hoffenheim, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The mood at Heidenheim has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heidenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mikkel Kaufmann has his answer from Heidenheim; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mikkel Kaufmann trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Christian Conteh's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
TSG Hoffenheim next, and one man in the Heidenheim dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Heidenheim. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
RB Leipzig left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
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 Paul Krüger to a room that had heard them before.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Heidenheim pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Max O'Leary
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“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.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Paul Krüger chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heidenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1‑4 against Bayern Munich, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Heidenheim can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Stefan Schimmer and Heidenheim agree another 2 years.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Max O'Leary.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Heidenheim dressing room in a hurry
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
23 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.
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.
“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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Heidenheim know it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Heidenheim has been clear about where Marnon Busch stands, which is more than many ever get.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
He is 23 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alessandro Vogt. 2‑0 against St. Pauli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 88 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
40 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Werder Bremen moved on, Michael Heule reports back to Heidenheim, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Mikkel Kaufmann reports back to Heidenheim with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
$8.8M was the most the club would pay and Eintracht Frankfurt were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
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.
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 terracesEverybody has an opinion about Jonas Urbig
The dugoutChristian Conteh is still being punished for one mistake
27Edition
The Heidenheim Chronicle
1 Feb 2027
From our football correspondentCrisis
The terraces1 Feb 2027
The mood at Heidenheim has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 104 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer went to Eintracht Frankfurt 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.
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.
Köln paid $6.6M 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.
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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Heidenheim until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $9.2M — a club that wants Keita Kosugi enough to be asked twice.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Heidenheim will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Position 18 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
1‑4 against Bayer Leverkusen, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Alessandro Vogt, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.66
A mark of 7.66 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.
Heidenheim had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at FC Nordsjaelland, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heidenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
0‑4 against Borussia Dortmund, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Heidenheim asked and Bayer Leverkusen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Alessandro Vogt, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.88
A mark of 7.88 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.
“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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
The name of Luca Kerber has come up in conversations Heidenheim were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Marked 6.90 on 14 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Heidenheim asked and Borussia Dortmund said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The mood at Heidenheim has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
16 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Köln were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alessandro Vogt did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
7.81, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tim Siersleben. 2‑1 against Köln, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The phone has started ringing about Leart Paçarada again, and this time the name on the line is Mainz 05. Heidenheim are listening politely and promising nothing.
Patrick Mainka and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
3 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Sirlord Conteh has his answer from Heidenheim; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout28 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 Paul Krüger to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
15 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.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Hamburger SV? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jonas Föhrenbach’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Heidenheim needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
14 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Heidenheim know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mikkel Kaufmann’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Heidenheim needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Alessandro Vogt, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 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.
Michael Heule 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
12 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.
Position 18 and 3 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Michael Heule and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Something was said to Max O'Leary and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑5, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Borussia Mönchengladbach go through and Heidenheim go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Heidenheim and RB Leipzig in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 2‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Budu Zivzivadze trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Heidenheim know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Stefan Schimmer has written the date down.
9 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.
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.
Marked 8.17 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“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 dugout9 Nov 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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Paul Krüger to a room that had heard them before.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mikkel Kaufmann provided it, and the 8.69 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Heidenheim has been clear about where Luca Kerber stands, which is more than many ever get.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“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 dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Alfred Gomis's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 6.69, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Heidenheim has been clear about where Julian Niehues stands, which is more than many ever get.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Sirlord Conteh's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Bayern Munich.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Heidenheim has been clear about where Adrian Beck stands, which is more than many ever get.
Michael Heule 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.
9 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against St. Pauli in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Heidenheim have no good answer.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
7.69, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Michael Heule and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Heidenheim than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Paul Krüger after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Budu Zivzivadze trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Budu Zivzivadze trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Heidenheim will try again when the window opens; Konyaspor may not be selling by then.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad14 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Heidenheim are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Heidenheim until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $198.0K — a club that wants Jonas Sterner enough to be asked twice.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atalanta have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Heidenheim than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
In brief
The dugoutAlfred Gomis is still being punished for one mistake
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Magdeburg 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.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Heidenheim have paid $9.2M for Max O'Leary, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Alessandro Vogt, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.71
A mark of 7.71 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.
Heidenheim have gone to Konyaspor with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Bournemouth keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The offer went to Hannover 96 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Brayan Alcócer is living that version at Heidenheim, and it tends to show in the first month.
Heidenheim have gone to West Bromwich Albion with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The name of Budu Zivzivadze has come up in conversations Heidenheim were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
$180.0K was the most the club would pay and Hertha BSC were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
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.
A season-long audition: Palermo still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Heidenheim's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
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.
A new face in his position, and Carl Klaus suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Heidenheim have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
$13.7M was the most the club would pay and RB Leipzig were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. VfL Wolfsburg have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Michael Heule 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.
Palermo have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Heidenheim are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
A new face in his position, and Jan Schöppner suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Heidenheim have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
A season-long audition: Karlsruher SC still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Heidenheim's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. RB Leipzig have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $198.0K — a club that wants John Brooks enough to be asked twice.
$180.0K on the table at Hertha BSC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Heidenheim can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Tobias Thomas 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marcel Seidel 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Philipp Hofmann 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Heidenheim will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“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.
Patrick Mainka and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Porto have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Heidenheim have made the call to Nottingham Forest. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Heidenheim have made the call to Karlsruher SC. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.