Heidenheim welcome Union Berlin to the Voith-Arena on Saturday afternoon with the table giving this match a very different feel for each side. For Frank Schmidt's team, it is survival football now. They sit 18th with just 16 points from 28 matches, six adrift of even a modest sense of comfort and badly in need of wins rather than brave draws. Union, down in 10th on 32 points, aren't chasing Europe and aren't staring at the trapdoor either, but that middle ground can turn flat quickly if standards slip. Heidenheim don't have the luxury of drift. They need a result.
There's a strange tension to this one. On the surface, the hosts look like the obvious side to oppose: bottom of the league, 63 goals conceded, no win in 15 Bundesliga matches. Grim reading. And yet the recent mood around Heidenheim isn't quite as hopeless as the standings suggest. They've drawn three of their last four, scored freely in patches, and they have a recent habit of making Union deeply uncomfortable. That's the hook here. Union are the more settled side in the table, but they remain fragile on the road and their own recent form has swung wildly from excellent to awful without much warning.
1. FC Heidenheim Form & Analysis
Heidenheim's last few weeks have been chaotic, open and just about entertaining if you don't support them. They went to Borussia M'gladbach last weekend and came away with a 2-2 draw that probably felt decent in the moment, though the underlying numbers hinted they could've taken more. Wael Mohya struck early, Patrick Mainka added another before the half-hour, and for a while Heidenheim had real control. Then came the familiar wobble. They couldn't close it out, just as they couldn't hold Bayer Leverkusen at home on 21 March when a wild 3-3 draw summed up both the threat and the weakness in Schmidt's side. Before that there was a narrow 1-0 defeat at Eintracht Frankfurt, a bruising 4-2 home loss to Hoffenheim, and a 2-0 defeat away to Werder Bremen. Go back one more and you get another 3-3 at home, this time against Stuttgart. They are constantly in games. That's the frustrating bit.
The big issue is obvious. Heidenheim haven't kept a clean sheet all season in league play and they've now gone 31 straight matches without one. That is a brutal foundation to build on, especially for a side already short on margin. They've also conceded first in each of their last 10, which tells you why every comeback feels so draining. Still, there is an attacking edge in this recent run that gives them a shot here. They have scored three against Leverkusen, three against Stuttgart and two away at Gladbach. You don't fluke that. The danger is real, especially when matches become stretched.
At home, the record is poor but not totally dead: two wins, five draws and seven defeats, with 18 scored and 34 conceded. That concession column is ugly. No point dressing it up. Yet the draw count matters because it shows Heidenheim do compete on this ground, even if they rarely sustain control for 90 minutes. The Voith-Arena hasn't been a fortress, far from it, but it has seen them ask questions of strong opponents. Against a Union side that doesn't travel with huge attacking punch — 13 away goals in 14 games is modest — Heidenheim should believe they can finally turn pressure into three points. They have to.
1. FC Union Berlin Form & Analysis
Union arrive with a cleaner league position but not much momentum. Their last six have been jagged: draw, loss, win, loss, loss, win. Last Sunday's 1-1 at home to St. Pauli was the kind of result that leaves a sour taste because they were the better side by a distance. They posted 2.00 xG to just 0.33 against, had 16 shots to nine, landed eight on target to two, and still didn't win. Andrej Ilić put them ahead early in the second half after Mathias Pereira Lage had cancelled out the opener, and they just couldn't find the second goal the performance deserved. That's football sometimes. It doesn't care.
Before that came a 4-0 defeat away to Bayern, which plenty of teams can absorb without shame, and a very useful 1-0 win at Freiburg that showed Union still know how to grind out a road result when the game suits them. The concern is what sits around those matches. They lost 4-1 at home to Werder Bremen in a collapse that was far too easy to trigger, and they were beaten 1-0 at Borussia M'gladbach before that. The 1-0 home win over Leverkusen on 21 February remains their standout recent scalp, but it hasn't launched a sustained run.
Their away record is mixed rather than disastrous: four wins, two draws and eight defeats, 13 goals scored and 25 conceded. That puts them ninth in the away table, which sounds respectable until you look at the volume of losses. Union can absolutely nick this. They already won at Freiburg in March. But they rarely dominate away from home and they don't score enough to paper over mistakes. Just 13 goals in 14 away games tells its own story. Steffen Baumgart's team can be stubborn, compact and opportunistic, yet when the match opens up they don't always have the quality to seize it. Against a Heidenheim side that turns nearly every game into a scrap, that's a problem.
The flip side? Union don't need much to hurt bottom-half opponents. Heidenheim concede first, concede often, and gift big moments. If Union get ahead, the entire mood of the game changes. But if this stays level deep into the second half, you can see the pressure shifting onto the visitors. Heidenheim's desperation gives them a nasty edge in this spot.
Head-to-Head
This fixture has leaned heavily Heidenheim's way of late, and that can't be ignored. They have won the last three meetings between the clubs, including a 2-1 win in Berlin on 29 November and a 2-0 home victory in January 2025. Go back a little further and the pattern still favours them: Heidenheim are unbeaten in the last five meetings with Union, and Union have struggled to find clean defensive solutions in this matchup.
That doesn't guarantee anything, of course. Different weeks, different pressures. Still, some opponents just drag you into bad habits, and Union have looked like that against Heidenheim for a while now.
We Predict: Home Win
Home Win at 3.00 is the play here. That price is built on Heidenheim's league position and that ugly 15-match wait for a victory, which is fair enough, but it also opens the door to a value call because this matchup is more balanced than the table suggests. Heidenheim have scored eight goals across their last four home league games against Stuttgart, Hoffenheim and Leverkusen, while Union have lost eight of 14 away matches and continue to offer very little margin for error on the road. Add in the recent head-to-head edge and the case becomes clear.
There is risk, obviously. Heidenheim's defence has been a mess all season and the xG projection is tight at 1.34 to 1.24, so this isn't one to treat as a banker. Still, the hosts are creating enough, competing better in recent weeks, and they look more desperate in the best possible sense. We'll go with a 2-1 Heidenheim win, which fits both the recent scoring pattern and the sense that neither side fully controls the game for long. If you're looking for a side angle, both teams to score has appeal given Heidenheim's clean-sheet drought and Union's tendency to stay involved even when they're second best.
