“One miracle is not enough to keep the team ahead, it takes two miracles,” Heidenheim’s Frank Schmidt said in early March, when his team had just lost to Werder and were now eight points behind the relegation play-offs. In recent weeks, however, one striker has remained hopeful of a double miracle.
Budou Chivchivadze barely played any ball for long stretches of the season and had to deal with suspension as he missed several months with a red card and a knee problem. But in what Sir Alex Ferguson once called “squeaky-butt time” (roughly translated: the time when your nerves are tickled; Editor’s note), he was at full strength at Heidenheim, scoring three goals in FCH’s final three games of the season.
advertise
He made several appearances in the All or Nothing game against St. Pauli, and just three minutes later, he forced the ball over the line after a corner kick to give his team a 1:0 lead. In the end, Heidenheim won 2:0. Failure in this game would mean relegation. With this win, not only has the inevitable game been postponed, but the team at the bottom of the table has even closed the gap to four points on St. Pauli, who currently occupy the relegation play-off spot, and can once again have hope.
This means that the first of Frank Schmidt’s two miracles may have already happened. The fact that his side still believed they could survive with three matchdays remaining was down to an incredible effort and Zivchivadze.
They failed to win a single Bundesliga match between December 13, 2025 and April 11, 2026. They often trailed by the slimmest of margins and even performed well against some of the top teams. It was totally frustrating because three points just wasn’t enough. Until, yes, until Zivchivadze started scoring.
In the 3-1 win over Union Berlin three weeks ago, Matthias Hunsacker scored twice, but then Leopold Quifield pulled one back in the 75th minute, which was likely to cause panic for a team that had not won for a long time. But Zivchivadze, who had come on just minutes earlier, restored the two-goal cushion almost immediately and Heidenheim celebrated their first win in what felt like an eternity.
advertise
In their next match, they lost to Freiburg (2:1) shortly before the end of the game, before registering a liberating victory over St. Pauli. Suddenly, hope was revived in Swabian Alb.
But Frank Schmidt is not unreasonable in talking about these two miracles. This Saturday, Bayern Munich awaits a team that has proven against so many opponents this season that miracles don’t happen for them. Even if they give up a three-goal lead, like Mainz 05 did last weekend.
Schmidt remains convinced: “We’ve beaten them once and now we play in Munich. We often put in good performances there,” he told Sky News after the last game. “If we’re going to achieve something really crazy, we need to get something next week as well. I know a lot of people are going to say he’s crazy for saying that now, but I’m not going to go out there just to make up numbers.”
But if Heidenheim loses as they wish, they will be extremely dependent on their opponents’ results. Neither St. Pauli nor Wolfsburg are in a position to win another match in the coming weeks and from FCH’s point of view ideally there shouldn’t be any further points at all as both clubs will be playing against each other on the final matchday meaning at least one of them is guaranteed points.
advertise
But of course, they also have to take care of their own business. If Zivchivadze is to become a true ‘miracle’ striker, he will have to lift his club to safety in his final two games against Cologne and Mainz. If he fails to do so, he will only be remembered as the man who gave Heidenheim a dignified farewell to the Bundesliga. Then again, this may have been more than Frank Schmidt could have dreamed of in early March.
This article was translated into English by artificial intelligence. You can read the original version of 🇩🇪 here.