Dieter Hecking is generally considered a quiet contemporary. But after less than a quarter of an hour, the coach of Hamburger SV had already lost their composure on Sunday afternoon in the game against SV Sandhausen. Hecking jumped up angrily, his face twisted into a nasty grimace and not much was missing, and he would also have made his notepad into small paper.
Shortly before, HSV had fallen behind, typically due to an own goal by Rick van Drongelen. This worsened the initial situation of Hamburg in the fight for relegation place in the second division even further. Given a one-point deficit to 1. FC Heidenheim, it was clear that a defeat would not be enough for HSV to jump to third place.
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Arminia Bielefeld made the announcement true in the parallel game against Heidenheim and played like a second division champion. After only 17 minutes, the first climber to the football upper house was already 2-0, here too, an opponent’s own goal paved the way. The looseness of Bielefeld went completely off Heidenheim, the legs were heavy, the head was obviously too full.
The good thing from the team of Frank Schmidt, however, was that the competition from Hamburg was obviously no different. Because after the 0-1 the HSV broke apart. Sandhausen quickly increased to 2-0 and had further chances to even extend the lead. In addition, Hecking had to change twice due to injury, which robbed his team of the last order.
In Bremen, meanwhile, they should have rubbed their hands. In this condition and in view of their own rebirth on Saturday at 6-1 against Cologne, neither Heidenheim nor HSV would be a really serious opponent in the two relegation matches.
The HSV will play the second league for the third year in a row in the coming season
Werder would not have had an opponent anyway. Officially, the Bremen team tried to be reluctant before the second division final, a possible derby against HSV was at most a big media topic. And anyway, according to Florian Kohfeldt, he warns against “thinking that Heidenheim is in any way lighter than HSV”.
In this assessment, the Werder coach was impressively confirmed in the first half on Sunday. Because both possible opponents seemed completely overwhelmed with the situation in the relegation race. Dieter Hecking marched into the HSV cabin almost in a lunge after the first 45 minutes, after all he was able to tell his players there that they could still do it on their own.
The same was true for Heidenheim, the small club from the 50,000-inhabitant city in East Württemberg. Before the game, CEO Holger Sanwald had emphasized in a newspaper interview that the First League objective could not exist in Heidenheim. Accordingly, his players also appeared in Bielefeld.
In the second 45 minutes it did not get better, the Arminia quickly increased to 3: 0, and the Heidenheimers only had hope that the HSV would not get baked even after the break. At least the hamburgers struggled, and finally the video referee helped a bit. After a borderline duel in the Sandhaus penalty area, there were penalties, which Aaron Hunt turned with a lot of wumms to 1: 2.
Now the HSV was just missing another goal to relegate and hope to follow Bielefeld and Stuttgart back into the Bundesliga. But there was a lack of structure in the game, there were hardly any chances. And then there was another whistle, Hecking looked pleadingly at the sky, but it didn’t help. This time there was a penalty for Sandhausen, after Behrens scored with the second goal 3-1 for the guests.
Because then there was a miracle of dimensions and even 1: 4 and 1: 5 fell, Heidenheim in Bielefeld was able to enjoy despite a 0: 3 defeat. Behavior, however, coach Frank Schmidt should know that after this performance with his team in the relegation against Bremen he is the greatest possible outsider. (Tsp)
