19th matchday
Another draw: Heidenheim also annoys Hoffenheim
Hoffenheim’s Florian Grillitsch (r) tries to separate Heidenheim’s Adrian Beck from the ball. photo
© Uwe Anspach/dpa
1. FC Heidenheim is undeterred on its path. The league newcomer doesn’t allow much for TSG Hoffenheim and scores a wonderful goal.
The footballers from the Ostalb, in tenth place in the table, already have 23 points after 19 match days and are only two less than the European Cup aspirants from Hoffenheim, who have only won one of the last ten games. Head coach Pellegrino Matarazzo’s team is still without a sense of success this year after defeats at FC Bayern and Freiburg and an often unimaginative home performance against Heidenheim.
It was the third draw in 2024 for the Heidenheimers, who are far away from the relegation zone. In the Baden-Württemberg duel between the club from the village of 3,300 inhabitants and the club from the small town of 48,800 inhabitants, the home team initially clearly dominated . The midfielders Grischa Prömel, Anton Stach and Andrej Kramaric were always looking for goalscorer Maximilian Beier. After less than three minutes, the U21 national player hit the ball high into the stands from a promising position.
With a double chance from Wout Weghorst, the guests were lucky that Patrick Mainka first got a foot in between and then the ball ended up in the hands of goalkeeper Kevin Müller. For Hoffenheim, Czech newcomer David Jurasek only sat on the bench. The 23-year-old left-back came on loan from Benfica during the week.
The Heidenheimers became more courageous after a quarter of an hour and fired their first dangerous shot through Dinkci. However, FCH top scorer Jan-Niklas Beste – to date with five goals and nine assists – usually had a hard time against his guard Pavel Kaderabek. Dinkci played to the fore: After Beier lost the ball, the loanee from Werder Bremen let two Hoffenheim players out very elegantly, ran up and away after a one-two with Jan Schöppner and pushed the ball past TSG keeper Oliver Baumann to make it 1-0 a.
Video evidence in stoppage time in the first half brought the unsettled TSG back into the game. Ex-Hoffenheim player Benedikt Gimber, of all people, played the ball with his elbow – Kramaric didn’t miss the chance to equalize from the point.
After the change, Heidenheim had goalkeeper Müller to thank for not falling behind straight away. The 32-year-old first saved against Florian Grillitsch and a few minutes later with a fantastic foot save against Beier. In vain Hoffenheim pushed for the opening goal with jokers like Ihlas Bebou – some leg of a Heidenheimer was always in the way.