The fan club members were already standing in the beer garden of the club’s restaurant “Zum Kelten” and enjoyed the first half before the team joined: The regional league footballers from SV Heimstetten came dancing and cheering after the 1-0 win on Saturday against FV Illertissen Single file from the changing room to their supporters, the “Hoaschdenger Buam”. The league was already done in the third to last game of the season and was celebrated with free beer at an extensive party that only ended in the early morning hours in the Maibaum-Stüberl. “It should have been light again when the last ones left,” says Michael Matejka, the manager of the restaurant and head of the football department. And is himself very enthusiastic about what his team has achieved this season in the fourth division: “It’s really crazy, I’m totally flashed.” The early rescue is unusual: “Usually we always had to tremble until the last day of the game or until relegation,” says Matejka. Captain and top scorer Lukas Riglewski (15 goals this season) even thinks that Heimstetten’s relegation is “comparable to promotion”.
Most recently, the Heimstettener remained undefeated in six games in a row, of which they won five – and will therefore also play in the concert of the best amateur clubs in the Free State in the next season. But it’s such a thing with the amateurs: the reserve teams from Bayern Munich, Greuther Fürth, FC Augsburg and 1. FC Nürnberg train under absolute professional conditions, as do the designated champions SpVgg Bayreuth, FC Schweinfurt 05 and SpVgg Unterhaching, in the previous season still third division. Eight training sessions per week are not uncommon for these teams, while in Heimstetten you only practice two or three times a week. Former SVH President Ewald Matejka, father of football division boss Michael, put it like this with a wink: “If we trained eight times, we would be German champions.”
Christoph Schmitt, 36, the team’s coach, attests that his players have a fairly professional attitude: “The level of training is very high, there is a lot of competition for the regular places.” According to Schmitt, there is also “the quality of the coaching team”, by which he probably means himself, but only mentions his colleagues: goalkeeping coach Igor Pintar and his two assistants Memis Ünver and Roman Langer.
Things didn’t go well in the fall: they led twice against Haching – and lost 3:4 after two dismissals
However, the trainers could also choose from an “incredibly broad squad” (Schmitt) – and that is one of the recipes for success this season, after all, in the past few weeks it has even been possible to avoid the failure of a whole series of regular players such as goalkeeper Maximilian Riedmüller and defender Fabio Sabbagh and attacking players Moritz Hannemann and Severin Müller compensated: “This homogeneity and the fact that we learned to defend from time to time were the key,” says the coach. The team had passed through a deep valley in autumn 2021: Eight defeats in a row had to be accepted, including the 3: 4 in Unterhaching after a 2: 1 and 3: 2 lead as well as two dismissals from Heimstetten. “In my opinion, that was a lot of bad luck at the time,” says Schmitt. It was the only week of the season in which the sports club was bobbing around in the relegation zone. “One could also say: We are not as bad as it looked in the fall, but also not as good as our results currently suggest.”
In recent years, the club has managed to occupy a niche between the big Munich clubs FC Bayern and TSV 1860 and give many players a second chance who didn’t make it there. “Of course we’re always looking for players from the Munich area,” says coach Schmitt. However, one cannot offer much money: “There are even district and district leagues that pay more than we do,” says department head Michael Matejka, who is nevertheless satisfied with the club’s finances: “We try not to spend more than we take in. Mostly we initially have a small deficit that we will make up over the course of the year.” There are a few people in the club’s environment “who sometimes give small sums”.
They now manage the sports park themselves – and rent it out to stars like Lewandowski and Kimmich for advertising purposes
A positive effect is that the well-equipped Heimstetten sports park is now managed by the company itself, which saves the municipality of Kirchheim money and staff. “We get part of the municipal budget for the sports park, so we maintain the spaces and also market them.” Many a prominent ball kicker has filmed commercials here, such as Bayern stars Robert Lewandowski and Joshua Kimmich.
SV Heimstetten is apparently on the right track in all respects, and training their own talents is now playing an increasingly important role after Kirchheimer SC had long been considered the club with the better youth work within the community. Some age groups have already advanced to the respective district leagues, which impresses head coach Schmitt, who is also involved in youth work: “In 2013, after the game community with Aschheim and Feldkirchen was dissolved, we still had all the teams in the normal group.”