Heidenheim’s long serving manager Frank Schmidt decided to keep the transfer activity in his team to a minimum this year, he hoped to see another push for promotion from his players as in 2016/17, but the absence of fresh blood made Blue and Reds very predictable in their tactics and approach, which saw them engulfed in gruelling survival battle from which they barely escaped right at the end of the campaign.
Four defeats in the opening five rounds quickly put pressure on Heidenheim and the gaffer never sorted the defensive issues that tortured the performances all season. With just two wins and eight defeats in the opening eleven rounds Heidenheim found themselves in trouble from very early on and this made it all so difficult for them for the rest of the campaign.
Blue and Reds kept just 1 clean sheet in the opening 18 rounds and despite winning four in five between rounds 12 and 16 they remained too close to the bottom three during the winter break to be feeling comfortable.
Schmidt was pleased that his hard work with the squad in January, he again opted out of buying new players in the winter, paid dividends and Heidenheim opened 2018 with 3 wins and 3 draws in their first 7 games. However, the defensive issues that were torturing the squad continued and four consecutive defeats between rounds 26 and 29 saw Blue and Reds collapsing in the bottom three with time running out.
All four strikers in the squad had up and down periods, the goalkeeper and the defenders struggled for form all campaign and it seemed that once again the only consistent contributions were coming from the midfield where Thiel, Griesbeck, Titsch-Rivero and especially captain Schnatterer were carrying the entire team on their shoulders.
Eventually Heidenheim survived after home wins in rounds 30 and 32 pulled them just above the bottom three. Still a positive result was needed in the final game to avoid the drop and Heidenheim got it after achieving 1:1 home draw against Greuther Furth.
