🔥 Brazilian seals it, Heidenheim win and book Bundesliga 25/26 spot
Heidenheim remains in the Bundesliga elite for 2025/2026.
Playing away, they defeated Elversberg 2-1 this Monday (26), in the second leg of the playoff - after a 2-2 draw in the first leg.
This achievement came with the decisive contribution of Brazilian Leo Scienza, who scored the winning goal at 95'.
He finished the playoff with THREE assists and one goal, participating in ALL four of Heidenheim's goals.
The match was necessary because, according to the championship regulations, the 16th place team in the Bundesliga (Heidenheim) plays against the 3rd place team in the 2.Bundesliga (Elversberg) to determine who stays in the elite of German football and who plays in the second division.
Honsak took advantage of Scienza's assist and opened the scoring for Heidenheim, nine minutes into the game.
However, still in the first half, Fellhauer (31') equalized, after an assist from Zimmerschield.
Tension was high in the final minutes. And extra time was looming.
Then talent decided.
Paul Wanner - who is expected to return to Bayern - set up Scienza.
He got past Le Joncour and shot with no chance for Kristof.
Reinforcing his decisive power in the playoff.
Recent History
2023/2024
Bochum saved themselves from relegation by overcoming Fortuna Düsseldorf.
They lost 3-0 at home in the first leg but matched the score away and won on penalties.
They would be relegated this season.
2022/2023
Stuttgart ended Hamburg's dream without much trouble.
They won 3-0 at home and then 3-1 at the Dinosaur's home.
They stayed in the elite and reached the German vice-championship the following season - the one won by Leverkusen.
2021/2022
Hertha frustrated Hamburg, who won 1-0 in Berlin but fell in front of their fans by losing 2-0 in the return leg.
Hertha would be directly relegated the following season - and in last place.
2020/2021
Playing at home in the first leg, Cologne saw Holstein Kiel surprise them with a 1-0 win.
But they ignored the second division team in the return leg, winning 5-1.
Cologne was relegated in 2023/2024 and is back in the elite for 25/26.
Kiel was in the elite but was relegated in the recently concluded season.
Augsburg
Bayer Leverkusen
Bayern Munich
Borussia Dortmund
Borussia Mönchengladbach
Cologne
Eintracht Frankfurt
Freiburg
Hamburg
Heidenheim
Hoffenheim
Mainz
RB Leipzig
St. Pauli
Stuttgart
Union Berlin
Werder Bremen
Wolfsburg
📸 Alex Grimm - 2025 Getty Images
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Carney Chukwuemeka to RB Leipzig links appear false, Raheem Sterling rumors also refuted
Seemingly reliable reports emerging earlier today regarding RB Leipzig's interest in Chelsea attacker Carney Chukwuemeka are apparently false. Kicker reports that the injury-prone Englishman is not an option for the German Red Bulls. Whether or not the recent Borussia Dortmund loanee plays in the Bundesliga at all next season is up in the air. Dortmund continue to encounter difficulty negotiating a new loan deal for Chukwuemeka with Chelsea. The notion that Dortmund and Leipzig could potentially organize a complicated swap deal for the 21-year-old made for interesting reading, but never was something that could be practically pulled off. Kicker contravened Sky Germany reports regarding Chuwuemeka. Earlier today, it was Sky Germany's turn to contradict the BBC. A sensational BBC report linking 82-times-capped England national team striker Raheem Sterling with a move to Bayer Leverkusen also appears totally false. The German pay-TV broadcaster emphatically denied that Chuwuemeka's fellow Chelsea professional was a candidate at Germany's red company team. GGFN |
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bayer Leverkusen boss revels in Bayern Munich's failure to land Florian Wirtz
The hate is real. Bayer Leverkusen CEO Fernando Carro really could not hide his excitement about Bayern Munich's failure to land Florian Wirtz. When asked if he was happy that Wirtz joined Liverpool instead of Bayern Munich, Carro could not wait to give a response. 'Honestly, yes. I have a different opinion than Hans-Joachim Watzke. I don't understand why, as the boss of Borussia Dortmund, he would have been happy if Wirtz had gone to Munich. Bayern would then have been even stronger. I want an exciting Bundesliga. I'm happy if more clubs—besides us—make life difficult for Bayern, because I believe the Bundesliga benefits from that,' Carro told Welt am Sonntag (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). 'When Florian and his parents told us they chose Liverpool, we weren't sad under the circumstances. It's no secret that we preferred a transfer abroad. When asked whether or not Bayern Munich made an offer to Bayern Leverkusen, Carro was happy to detail how he shot down the Bavarians. 'Yes, in spring. Jan-Christian Dreesen contacted me. He told me that he and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge wanted to talk to us about Florian Wirtz. I said: We have no interest in selling our best player to Munich. Then there were no more concrete talks. Bayern were apparently convinced that Florian would choose them. I told them: We have other information,' Carro noted. Yeah, there is bad blood. The careers of Liverpool FC's Luis Diaz and Bayern Munich board member for sport Max Eberl could end up intertwined if the transfer move goes through. Meanwhile, is the rest of the Bundesliga sick of being bullied by Bayern Munich and is the league bleeding too much talent? Also, Paul Wanner and Lennart Karl could be in line for opportunities during the the youngster take advantage of those chances? Finally, the father of Florian Wirtz talks through how the decision to join Liverpool played out and you can hear how HBO screwed BPW this week. You can get all of that on the latest edition of the Bavarian Podcast Works — Weekend Warm-up Show! The podcast is available on Patreon, Acast, Spotify, any leading podcast distributor, or below: Also, be sure to stay tuned to Bavarian Podcast Works for all of your up to date coverage on Bayern Munich and Germany. Check us out on Patreon and follow us on Twitter @BavarianFBWorks, @BavarianPodcast @TheBarrelBlog, @BFWCyler, @2012nonexistent, @TommyAdams71 and more. More from A forgettable international match day for all Bayern Munich players involved Czech Republic vs Germany lineup, discussion: Time, TV schedule and how to watch World Cup Qualifiers online 'What about Thomas Müller?' Support pours in for Bayern Munich's troubled icon BFW Transfer Deadline Day 2017 live thread Kingsley Coman confident of his part in Bayern Munich's plans this season Report: Renato Sanches set for loan move to Swansea Would this guy be the perfect backup for Robert Lewandowski?
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The most aggressive set-piece team in the world plays in Minnesota
Not many soccer players are as passionate about dead balls as Anthony Markanich. Then again Minnesota United, under the 33-year-old first-time head coach Eric Ramsay, don't play soccer like most teams. 'All the guys get really excited about set pieces, especially myself,' Markanich gushed last Friday after scoring a goal off a long throw-in by the center back Michael Boxall for the second time in a week. 'I told Boxy I love when he has the ball for throw-ins and stuff – I get so excited about that.' The wingback's match-winner against FC Dallas marked the third straight game Minnesota have scored from a long throw into the penalty area. It was their sixth throw-in goal before the MLS All-Star break – which falls about two-thirds of the way through the season. That's as many as Brentford's famous long throws produced all last season in the Premier League. Even though they're chucking more balls into the box than any Major League Soccer side in at least a decade, long throws might not be the Loons' most distinctive set piece routine. They've also borrowed a page from Sean Dyche's playbook by bringing their goalkeeper up to wallop free kicks into the opposition's box from around the halfway line, where almost any other team would tap the ball sideways to resume ordinary midfield possession. Minnesota's oddball tactics aren't just outliers in MLS. According to an analysis by Soccerment, a soccer data company, they take more long throws and deep free kicks than any other club in 30 of the world's top leagues, from the Bundesliga to the Brasileirão. The low-budget overachievers sitting third in the MLS Western Conference just might be the most aggressive set piece team on the planet. Ramsay's commitment to putting any possible dead ball into the mixer may look strange, even old-fashioned, but there's evidence to support continuing to do it. Across leagues, seasons and playing styles, long throws into the box are twice as likely to lead to a goal in the next 30 seconds as other throw-ins in the final quarter of the pitch. The same goes for deep free kicks into the 'Dyche Zone' at the top of the opponent's box, which are twice as valuable as other free kicks taken between the edge of a team's defensive third and the halfway line. Like the Moneyball-era Oakland A's, Minnesota found an analytical edge out of financial necessity. Ramsay's squad ranks 26th out of 30 MLS teams for player compensation, which has put an expensive passing game all but out of reach. 'It's not that we're a club that is unwilling to spend, but since I've been here, there's been a real efficiency drive,' he said. 'Ultimately where we use set plays, it comes from wanting to squeeze every advantage that we possibly can from the group of players that we've got.' Ramsay joined the MLS side last year from an assistant role at Manchester United, where he studied how teams like Brentford, Newcastle and Dyche's Burnley used direct set pieces to punch above their weight in the Premier League. 'Obviously it's not escaped my attention that teams with smaller budgets can out-compete teams right at the top end through set plays,' he said. 'It was one of the things I looked at from afar and thought prior to coming in that we could find an advantage.' In the Twin Cities, he found a squad well suited for long set pieces. Their strengths are a sturdy defensive line and a pair of tall strikers who excel on fast breaks, so there hasn't been much downside to bypassing midfield possession for booming free kicks from the goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair or throw-ins from the New Zealand international Boxall, who can hurl the ball 30 yards from a near-standstill. 'I think particularly when it comes to how we use throw-ins and deep free kicks, we probably give away between five and 10% what would be very easy possession in order to be high value in those situations,' Ramsay explained. 'If we wanted to have 47% of the ball consistently, we could do it like that. We would just choose to use set plays in a different way.' Their unstoppable long throw-ins can look hilariously easy. Markanich's two goals last week came from near-mirror image throws to a trio of Minnesota players jostling for position at the near corner of the six-yard box while he waited behind them in the center of goal and the striker Kelvin Yeboah peeled off from the penalty spot to help hunt for a flick-on header. 'Everyone's just wanting to flick the ball on,' Markanich said. 'I think everyone knows their roles, especially on set pieces.' Deep free kicks have more tactical variety depending on where they're taken, but every set piece starts from principles that Ramsay rattles off like a pop quiz: 'Do you have the right number of players in the contact area? Is the thrower or the set piece taker able to, with a real degree of accuracy, put the ball into a certain spot? Are you really well set for the second contact, and are the players on the move for the second contact? 'How is it that when the ball breaks to the edge of the box for a second, third or fourth phase, you can recycle the ball in order to get a second or third chance and continually upgrade the quality of your opportunity as you go?' This is the big idea behind Ramsay's set pieces: not that they'll score every time from a perfect routine, but that by using each stoppage to cram a bunch of bodies and the ball into a small area around the opponent's goal, his side can force errors, win second balls and string together chance after chance, set piece after set piece, always ratcheting up the pressure. New phase-of-play data from the livescore app Futi supports this line of thought. (I co-founded Futi with the data scientist Mike Imburgio, who consults on Minnesota's recruitment but isn't involved with set pieces.) Though only 14% of Minnesota's throw-ins into the box produce a shot, they lead to another set piece 20% of the time. Similarly, 45% of the team's deep free kicks reach a second phase where the ball bounces around the box while the defense is still disorganized. The Loons haven't managed a single shot in the first phase of a Dyche Zone free kick but they've scored three goals during those dangerous second phases, plus another from a subsequent corner kick. Add it all up and the value of Minnesota's aggressive set pieces is astonishing: their 10 goals within 45 seconds of a long throw or deep free kick represent nearly a third of the team's season total. Though their entire squad earns about half of Lionel Messi's salary at Inter Miami, Minnesota are perched above Miami in the Supporters Shield standings and doing a pretty good job of recreating Messi in the aggregate just by lobbing dead balls into the box. Related: The Club World Cup has shown MLS the cost of capping ambition Fans have bought into a style that might have been a tough sell if it weren't so hard to argue with results. 'There's a bit of an aura around us in set plays, particularly at home,' Ramsay said. 'Our crowd are wild for set plays. At corners, every single member of the crowd is swinging the scarf around.' After years of decline, long throws into the box are on the upswing in MLS and the Premier League. A new generation of managers such as Eddie Howe and Graham Potter are reconsidering deep free kicks, which like Dyche himself had fallen out of fashion as too 'pragmatic.' What looks exotic now may one day be as normal as putting kickoffs out of bounds near the corner flag or building out of the back from a short goal kick. 'I don't think anything we do is rocket science. I don't think it will take the opposition long to work out what sits behind our success,' Ramsay said of his team's extraordinary set piece record after the win in Dallas. 'But stopping it is very different.'