Freiburg vs. Heidenheim preview: Basement side aiming for back-to-back wins | OneFootball

Freiburg

Freiburg will carry significant momentum into Sunday’s fixture after winning five of their last six competitive matches, including a commanding victory in Thursday’s Europa League quarter-final second leg against Celta Vigo. After cruising to a 3-0 win in the first leg, Julian Schuster’s side extended their advantage with an impressive 3-1 success in Galicia, which came courtesy of a Igor Matanović rocket and a Yuito Suzuki brace. The 6-1 aggregate success set up a semi-final tie against Portuguese side Braga, with the winner going on to face Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest in the final.

The Breisgau-Brasilianer will now turn their focus back to Bundesliga action, although they will have one eye on Wednesday’s DFB-Pokal semi-final against Stuttgart. As it stands, the cup and the Europa League represent the most realistic routes for Freiburg to qualify for European competition next season, with the eighth-placed side sitting 11 points adrift of the top six.

Freiburg will be the favourites for Sunday’s meeting with the Bundesliga’s bottom side, but no win in their last three home league games suggests that a win is far from a forgone conclusion (D1, L2). 

Team News

Freiburg remain without Patrick Osterhage and Max Rosenfelder due to knee and thigh injuries respectively. 

Predicted lineup: Atubolu; Kübler, Ginter, Ogbus, Günter; Eggestein, Manzambi; Irié, Höler, Scherhant; Matanović

Heidenheim

Heidenheim looks set to drop down to the second tier after mustering 19 points from their 29 league outings. That said, they have managed to put together a three-game unbeaten run to give themselves some renewed belief ahead of the final five games of the season. After drawing with Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Mönchengladbach, Frank Schmidt’s side ended their 15-game winless run with a 3-1 victory against Union Berlin last weekend. Mathias Honsak netted a first-half brace before Leopold Querfeld reduced the deficit at the Voith-Arena. Budu Zivzivadze swiftly restored the two-goal cushion to ease the nerves as Heidenheim claimed their first win of 2026.

The basement side need more results like that in the run-in if they are to have any hope of remaining in the division, with seven points separating them from St. Pauli in the relegation-playoff spot. If they are to reduce that gap to four points on Sunday, Heidenheim will need to claim their first away league win since beating Union Berlin 2-1 in November. 

While their away record offers little cause for optimism, Heidenheim can take confidence from the fact they beat Freiburg 2-1 in December’s reverse fixture.

Team News

Heidenheim are unable to call upon the services of Mikkel Kaufmann, Leart Paçarada and Sirlord Conteh, while there are doubts surrounding the availability of Benedikt Gimber and Jonas Föhrenbach.

Predicted lineup: Ramaj; Busch, Mainka, Siersleben, Behrens; Dinkçi, Niehues, Schöppner, Honsak; Zivzivadze, Pieringer