Rand for ten minutes, Hamburger SV finally felt like a Bundesliga club again, but at the end of a dramatic promotion thriller, 1. FC Heidenheim celebrated their first leap into the Bundesliga. Memories of the Schalke four-minute championship 22 years ago came up when the cheering HSV fans on the pitch in Sandhausen found out about the unbelievable turnaround in the parallel game.
With an own goal, a controversial penalty and a goal in the ninth minute of added time, coach Frank Schmidt’s team won 3-2 at Jahn Regensburg after being 2-0 down. HSV’s 1-0 was ultimately worthless. Now there is “total demolition,” said Heidenheim’s striker Tim Kleindienst, who scored the decisive goal with his 25th goal of the season and became the top scorer. “There are no words for it,” said Kleindienst on Sky: “That’s why we love football, that’s why we love sport. Because stories like this are written. That’s just great, madness, insane. That was just pure belief. But we just deserved it.”
Sandhausen’s stadium announcer, who had already congratulated HSV on their promotion, handed the microphone to HSV sports director Jonas Boldt, who appealed to the disappointed fans on the pitch. “It was bitter today,” said Boldt: “Unfortunately, that’s part of the sport. Bundles all forces. The thing isn’t over yet. If we put all that on the scales again next week, then we’ll do it with an extra lap.”
“A few crushed ribs”
In the relegation, HSV meets VfB Stuttgart. Heidenheim even snatched the championship from Darmstadt, which lost 4-0 (0-0) at the Greuther Fürth game association. In the relegation relegation against SV Wehen Wiesbaden after the 0: 4 (0: 2) at 1. FC Magdeburg Arminia Bielefeld has to fear the direct crash from the first to the third division. 1. FC Nürnberg, who finally won 1-0 (1-0) at SC Paderborn, and Eintracht Braunschweig, despite the 1-2 (0-0) loss at Hansa Rostock, secured their place in the class and can breathe a sigh of relief.
In Regensburg, coach Schmidt, who has been coach in Heidenheim since 2007, laughed when he was told that managing director Holger Samwald had promised him a memorial in the event of promotion. “There will be peeing at some point, and I don’t want that,” he said. “A few ribs were crushed” during the ceremony, “but I accept that. We more than deserve it. As long as the referee doesn’t blow the whistle, we’ll just keep going. It was impressive how we fought for this dream to the end.”
He fulfilled. And Hamburg’s coach Tim Walter quickly showed himself combative. “Anyone can do it,” he said. “We’ve done our homework. In the end, the others did them too. Congratulations to Heidenheim. We’ll shake ourselves and then we’ll get up again and attack again.” He doesn’t give a damn about the fact that Stuttgart is his former club, after failing in the relegation to Hertha BSC last year he believes in promotion this time: “We had last year had the chance and this year we will take our chance. Because the team has good character.”
The Bielefeld team also have to brace themselves before their relegation after the bitter slap in Magdeburg. “I expected a lot, but not this. I’m totally empty,” said veteran Fabian Klos. “In terms of football, this is one of the bitterest days of my career, I have to digest that first.”
#Heidenheim #rises #Bundesliga #HSV #relegation