Sport against Bochum
Shortly before the end, Kleindienst suddenly has Heidenheim’s victory on his feet
As of: 6:04 p.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
The battle of attrition ended without a winner. Heidenheim and Bochum ended in a draw. After a major mistake by VfL shortly before the end, the promoted team had a great chance to win. Tim Kleindienst later explained his miss.
A lot of fight, but no goals: promoted team 1. FC Heidenheim and VfL Bochum drew 0-0 on Sunday after 90 tough minutes. The Heidenheimers fulfilled coach Frank Schmidt’s mission to take something worthwhile against their direct competitors from the bottom of the Bundesliga table. The head coach was still not completely satisfied.
“In the end it’s this one chance. If we do that, we win the game. Otherwise a game like this will remain 0-0. And that’s how it was. Overall, the draw is certainly okay,” said Schmidt. The newcomers are in 13th place in the table with eleven points – ten of which they got at home. For VfL, who are further behind, it was already the seventh draw this season.
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“I expect an opponent who will step on the gas right from the start,” said VfL coach Thomas Letsch in the run-up to the 953rd match in Bundesliga history. And the 55-year-old was correct in this assumption, because in a surprisingly fast-paced opening phase, Eren Dinkci had the first opportunity for the home team. The loanee from Werder Bremen only hit the side netting after two minutes. But VfL didn’t hide either. Jonas Föhrenbach saved from Takuma Asano (9th) and after half an hour the Japanese was too stubborn. Kevin Stöger also shot past from distance (23′).
“We need extremely strong will and good, quick decisions,” FCH coach Frank Schmidt, who changed his starting eleven in one position, demanded of his team. The will of his protégés could not be denied. However, the Heidenheimers often made the wrong decision when moving forward: sometimes the dangerous ball was not played deep, but to the wing. At times, the offensive players preferred to go to the center instead of playing to the better positioned man next to them.
Kleindienst explains his miss
The fight continued even after the break. It wasn’t until eight minutes after the restart that things became dangerous for the first time in front of the FCH goal. With a flying pass, Kevin Müller prevented Patrick Osterhage from falling behind (53′) and on the other side Manuel Riemann saved against Tim Kleindienst, who, together with Eren Dinkci and Jan-Niklas Beste, had scored 15 of the 17 goals of the season so far.
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Things were getting more heated now. Cristian Gamboa clashed with referee Felix Zwayer and was shown a yellow card for his complaint. But the goalkeepers also had something to do: Müller had the lively Asano turned away and Riemann made it particularly exciting. Because he couldn’t hold on to a shot from substitute Nikola Dovedan, the goalkeeper had to follow up again. He prevented the late goal just in time. Shortly before the end, Kleindienst missed the winning goal after a mistake by Erhan Masovi in front of Riemann.
The big chance: Tim Kleindienst appears free in front of Manuel Riemann, but shoots over the goal
Source: Getty Images/Alexander Hassenstein
“The ball started bouncing. I didn’t hit the ball as much as I actually wanted and ended up hitting it way too hard. In the end, I should have just run past him because I had so much speed,” said Kleindienst angrily: “It was a good game for us. But it’s a shame that I didn’t take my chance in the end.”
