No shine, no ideas – and only one point: Borussia Dortmund made another mistake against 1. FC Heidenheim and dropped points in the Bundesliga for the first time this year. After three wins in a row, the severely weakened BVB only managed a 0-0 draw with the promoted team on Friday evening and had to accept a setback in the fight for the Champions League places. Coach Edin Terzic’s team was once again hardly able to impress against courageous Heidenheim players and missed the jump to third place in the table. After the surprising 2-2 draw in the first leg at the beginning of September, Heidenheim once again proved to be a stumbling block for harmless Dortmund and extended its own series to an impressive seven games without defeat.
Terzic had warned his team of a “difficult” task – and again had to do without numerous players. As against Bochum, Gregor Kobel, Julian Brandt and Marco Reus were missing from the Dortmund squad, and Jadon Sancho was also out due to muscular problems. The Dortmund team that was on the field found it difficult to get into the game. On the offensive, BVB showed a lack of ideas despite having a lot of possession, but that also had something to do with the hosts. As usual, Heidenheim appeared brave and aggressive, stood securely at the back – and almost took the lead. After a bad mistake by Salih Özcan, Tim Kleindienst (14th) got the ball in the Dortmund penalty area, but shot past the half-empty goal. A wake-up call for BVB? Not really. The runner-up allowed Heidenheim to advance to their own penalty area without any resistance. But the newcomer too often lacked precision, which was almost punished. Donyell Malen (26th) took advantage of Dortmund’s first real chance to take the lead. Only the Dutchman was offside and the video referee overturned the goal. In a now more balanced game, BVB also appeared offensively a few times, but it was no longer dangerous on either side. Dortmund visibly tried to take control of the game after half-time. Heidenheim was now primarily challenged defensively, but was still able to easily keep Dortmund’s harmless players away from the goal. Since the hosts’ counter-attacks mostly fizzled out, the game only provided a few highlights.