At least things are going well away from home for VfL Wolfsburg. The Lower Saxony team won in Heidenheim and moved past FCH in the table. The Swabians, who are so strong internationally, are slowly getting into trouble in the Bundesliga.
VfL Wolfsburg has once again brought the international series winners 1. FC Heidenheim back into everyday league life and given themselves some breathing room to get into the relegation places. At the end of the tenth matchday, the Lower Saxony team won 3-1 (2-0) on the Ostalb and are now four points ahead of the relegation zone.
FCH has only picked up one point from its last five games in the Bundesliga and fell behind VfL in the table. “We are under pressure with the upcoming tasks,” says FCH coach Frank Schmidt: “But we accept this situation. We also showed in the last situation that we can score points against teams where people might not think we can.”
Yannick Gerhardt (3rd minute), 18-year-old Bence Dardai (42nd) and joker Tiago Tomás (90th) scored the goals for Wolfsburg, who had to tremble at times. Dardai is 6,865 days old and with his goal he replaced none other than his captain, Maximilian Arnold, as Wolfsburg’s youngest Bundesliga goalscorer – Arnold was 31 days older when he scored his first Bundesliga goal. “I’m overjoyed, that’s clear,” said Dardai on DAZN.
Marvin Pieringer (64th) temporarily shortened the score for Heidenheim, who had celebrated their third victory in the third game of the league phase in the Conference League a few days earlier.
The Wolfsburg team have delivered consistently so far this season, at least away from home. They got ten of their twelve points away from home – only leaders FC Bayern Munich (16) are even stronger in this category.
Müller doesn’t look good with VfL in charge
VfL’s half-time performance was fine. However, FCH keeper Kevin Müller didn’t look good when Gerhardt hit. The 30-year-old’s shot was concealed, but also unplaced. Müller deflected to the side and the ball bounced off the post and into the net. Another deficit for Heidenheim. Exactly what coach Frank Schmidt wanted to avoid.
Although FCH had more possession of the ball, VfL initially had the clearer chances. Even the early exit of defender Joakim Maehle due to a thigh problem (20th) did not upset the guests. Konstantinos Koulierakis aimed too imprecisely after a corner (23′), his defensive colleague Denis Vavro hit the post with a free kick (35′).
Standing balls were in demand on both sides. At least through this, the Heidenheim team, who were slow to play in the first half, managed to develop danger. Mathias Honsak scored from a corner to make it 1-1, but was just offside when team-mate Patrick Mainka’s header hit (25′).
At 0-2, the home team defended weakly. Müller parried a header from Vavro, but the ball ended up at Dardai via a detour – and he poked it into the left corner.
After the break, a different picture: Heidenheim pressed, VfL had problems at times. The 1:2, which – of course – resulted from a standard situation, was deserved. Pieringer scored with a direct shot while sitting and made things really exciting again.
In the 83rd minute, Müller prevented substitute Kevin Behrens from making the decision. After Heidenheim almost managed to equalize (89′), Tomás made everything clear with a low shot.
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