From relegation fodder to the UEFA Conference League: Heidenheim prove doubters wrong
When Heidenheim came up to the Bundesliga for the first time in 2023, they were tipped by many as certain one-season wonders. Well, it did turn into a wonder - a European one, as they qualified for the UEFA Conference League to complete their journey from Germany's sixth tier to competing on the continental stage. And now they even top the Bundesliga table for the first time in their history, which for the last two decades features one constant...
When Heidenheim, a club that traces its history back to 1846, first reached the top flight of German football, it's fair to say there was little opposition to those claims that they would go straight back down.
After all, they were debutants at this elite level, were operating on a fairly meagre budget. Their 15,000-capacity Voith-Arena may be the highest in German professional football but it is the smallest in the Bundesliga, just one-fifth the size of Bayern Munich's Allianz Arena. In fact, the entire population of Heidenheim an der Brenz (barely 50,000) could fit inside the Allianz or Borussia Dortmund's Signal Iduna Park with plenty of seats left over.
Fast forward a year, and those who wrote off Heidenheim are now being served a big slice of humble pie.
That's because, in fact, Heidenheim have been excellent in the Bundesliga. As last season drew to an end, they are nowhere to be seen near the relegation zone. In fact, Heidenheim finished a whole nine points clear of the bottom three and 15 better off than the automatic trapdoor of second bottom - in such a lofty position, eighth, that they even earned a spot in the play-off round for the 2024/25 UEFA Conference League.
Watch: Heidenheim 3-2 Bayern Munich - 2023/24 highlights
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