Heidenheim's Frank Schmidt: Relegation Battle Continues Despite Big Bundesliga Win

FC Heidenheim head coach Frank Schmidt encouraged his players to relish their remaining Bundesliga matches ahead of their fixture against Union Berlin. The team seemingly took his advice to heart, securing only their fourth Bundesliga win of the season on Saturday with a convincing 3-1 victory at the Voith Arena.

The match saw Austrian forward Mathias Honsak score his first two Bundesliga goals of the 2025/26 season in impressive fashion. Budu Zivzivadze, who has faced scrutiny for his transfer, also added his second goal of the campaign, and could have scored another had it not been for a disallowed effort.

A reconfigured attacking partnership of Marvin Pieringer and Stefan Schimmer applied consistent pressure on the opposition. Captain Patrick Mainka and the rest of the Heidenheim defense limited Union Berlin to less than 1.0 expected goals (xG). Despite remaining at the bottom of the Bundesliga standings, Heidenheim now has 19 points.

The fact that both Wolfsburg lost to Eintracht Frankfurt and St. Pauli were defeated by Bayern Munich on Saturday has provided a glimmer of hope for the Ostalbschwaben. Heidenheim is now only six points behind St. Pauli, who currently occupy the promotion-relegation playoff spot.

Naturally, reporters at the post-match press conference inquired if, with five matchdays left, Schmidt would reconsider his earlier assertion regarding Heidenheim's likely relegation.

Schmidt reiterated the commonly accepted "Bundesliga Safety Threshold" of 34-35 points for survival in a single season. In the 52-year-old's view, this is the only metric that truly matters, and it conveniently represents the maximum number of points still available.

Frank Schmidt Insists "Nothing Has Changed"

"We had some players out there who were a little more relaxed today," Schmidt remarked during the post-match press conference. "I was simply happy that something went right for a change. I’m happy about three points. It would be nice if we can do it again against Freiburg last week."

"It’s great that the players enjoy this and have a better mindset," Schmidt continued. "For you guys, it’s six points. For me, it’s still 15 points in five games. It’s a big gap and it’s not my place to give you a synthetic talk about ‘conviction and courage’."

"It’s true that we’ve played a lot of good games this season," Schmidt went on. "The last four [a narrow loss against Frankfurt and draws against Leverkusen and Gladbach prior to the win] were solid, and we were very unlucky in some cases."

"But I’m sticking to my line," Schmidt emphasized. "I know that everybody wants me to say that everyone is hoping and believing. We’ll see if we’re discussing some sort of magnificent miracle here after the 34th matchday [a home fixture against Mainz]."

"For now, we just play," Schmidt concluded. "We’ll focus on solving problems and not making calculations."