Heidenheim vs Chelsea: Everything you need to know | News | Official site

Tonight, sixth-placed Chelsea face Heidenheim in what will be the fourth of six league stage games as the teams look for a place in the top eight of the table that will guarantee direct passage to the round of 16 in March.

On Saturday, the Blues consolidated third place in the Premier League table with a 2-1 win at Leicester, while Heidenheim is licking its Bundesliga wounds after a 2-0 lead turned into a 5-2 defeat at Leverkusen .

After a record-breaking 8-0 home win over Noah on matchday three, two-time Champions League winners Chelsea could now become the first English team to score four or more goals in four consecutive major European competition games.

The hosts were Germany’s eighth-best team last season, but qualified for this competition after league champions Bayer Leverkusen won the DFB Cup.

The venue for today’s fourth division game can accommodate 15,000 spectators – almost a third of the Baden-Württemberg city’s population – although they are currently performing slightly better away from home. It won’t be warm in southwest Germany this evening. The Voith Arena is not only the smallest stadium in the Bundesliga, but also the highest stadium above sea level.

This looks set to be the biggest test of Chelsea’s game plan yet at this stage of the Conference League. The remaining two play next month against Shamrock Rovers and Astana, clubs already in post-season mode after completing their domestic seasons earlier this month.

With only 17 players in the competition so far, the Londoners have recorded the tournament’s biggest win ever (8-0), the most goalscorers (nine), the best shot conversion rate (25 percent) and the highest number of expected goals (xG) ( 10.1), greatest overperformance of xG (+5.9), most shots on goal (33), most big chances (20), most ball touches in the opponent’s penalty area (125), fewest yellow cards (two), highest passing rate (90.8) and most times of possession with 10 or more passes (81).

Team news

Wesley Fofana, Romeo Lavia and Cole Palmer are among the players not in the Blues’ UEFA squad and could all start against Aston Villa on Sunday, but the Italian has solutions for every area tonight.

Against Noah, Enzo Fernandez became only the third player in the competition’s short history to provide three assists in the same game, but the King Power Stadium also witnessed one of his best performances in England. Conference League regular Joao Felix was instrumental in the success of Maresca’s tactical plan at Leicester and could be used again tonight.

While Tyrique George only gets a few minutes of play in this competition and Jadon Sancho is hoping for a run-out after being sent off, the numbers in the forwards are already good. Joao Felix has scored a brace in his last two European games, former Bundesliga Player of the Year Christopher Nkunku has scored in each of his last five goals and Mykhailo Mudryk also scored in Panathinaikos and Noah’s home game.

The story

This is the first ever game between Chelsea and Heidenheim, but we have already played against other German teams 27 times and have remained winless in our last three away games in this country. Only clubs from Spain (15 times) and Italy (10) have beaten the Blues more times than the German representatives (seven).

TSV Munich were the first of their compatriots to host the Blues in March 1966, a 2-2 draw in the Fairs Cup quarter-finals on a carpet of Bavarian snow. Luckily we won 1-0 in London and moved into the quarter-finals.

The last encounter took place in the round of 16 of the 2022/23 Champions League, where the Londoners recovered from a 1-0 hit in the away game and beat Borussia Dortmund 2-1 on aggregate thanks to Raheem Sterling and a Kai Havertz penalty on both sides Half time.

The biggest win on German soil was against Schalke a decade ago this month, a 5-0 group stage clash with five different goalscorers.

However, there is no doubt about the club’s most famous success in the land of Goethe and Beethoven. That was the unforgettable evening of May 19, 2012 at the Allianz Arena when Didier Drogba scored the decisive penalty against Bayern Munich and secured our first Champions League triumph.

Conference League Regulations

All 36 clubs involved are listed in the same table. This is the fourth of six games and at the end of next month the top eight will advance straight to the round of 16 in March. The next eight will have to move into the knockout phase play-offs in February as seeds to face one of the unseeded teams that finished in positions 17 to 24. Sides 25 and above will be eliminated.

In the event that two or more clubs are tied on points after the league phase, the ranking will be determined in the order: goal difference, goals scored, away goals scored, number of wins and number of away wins.

In this competition, the Video Assistant Referee system is used and a player who receives three yellow cards will be suspended for one match.

Do you know that…

Chelsea’s 16 goals are the most scored by a team in the first three games of a major European group or league stage since 1997/98. It is also twice as much as the total value of the eight teams of the nearest Conference League competitor Legia Warsaw this season.

Only four previous Conference League participants – Marseille, Viktoria Plzen, Villarreal and West Ham United – have won each of their first four games.

Heidenheim is 99th in the UEFA coefficient rankings and is now 15th in the 18-team German Bundesliga.

Stamford Bridge housed at least 230 times more Chelsea people than the entire population of Heidenheim (around 50,000).