Hearts lost their way in the second-half as Heidenheim peeled away to a 2-goal victory at Tynecastle in the Conference League.
Hearts brought the energy and tenacity to match the ferocious atmosphere from the home fans in the first-half, just lacking the finishing touch that the performance had warranted.
Heidenheim’s quality shone through in the second, as Sirlord Conteh headed past a helpless Craig Gordon to give the visitors’ the lead.
Substitute Jan Schoppner finished things off in the 88th minute, thus ending Neil Critchley’s side’s unbeaten start to their Conference League campaign.
Critchley named two changes to the side that bounced back at McDiarmid Park at the weekend, with Adam Forrester and Stephen Kingsley coming in for Daniel Oyegoke and Kye Rowles.
Frank Schmidt, who has been in the post at Heidenheim for 17 years, overseeing promotions from the fifth tier all the way up to the Bundesliga, named 8 changes to his team, reshuffling the squad that lost to relegation-threatened Holsten Kiel in their previous fixture.
Both sides had a perfect record in-tact in the Conference League going into this one, 2 wins from 2, but one of those records was going to have to be broken by 9:45.
The fever pitch at Tynecastle hit when the teams came through the tunnel and it was followed by a moment of silence to remember those affected by the tragic floods in Valencia.
Hearts started with a swift press and almost hit the fronts after just two minutes, Blair Spittal picking the pockets of Lennard Maloney which allowed Lawrence Shankland a gift of a chance, but he smashed it straight at Kevin Muller in the visitors’ net.
A chance that perhaps came a little too early in the game for the Jambos.
Hearts continued the fast press and Shankland had a chance to atone for his miss just a few moments prior, albeit from a lot tougher of an angle, but Muller had his front post handled well.
Frankie Kent was next to go close, the big defender up from the back and diving in at the back-post to head well wide of the goal from a Spittal in-swinger.
James Penrice hustled his way through the Heidenheim rearguard to find Alan Forrest, who was spared his blushes by the offside flag after scuffing a big chance wide of the goal.
Forrest shimmied away from his marker down the right and picked out Penrice after a failed clearance attempt, but the former Livingston defender blazed his reckless effort off-target.
Captain Shankland linked up well with young Forrester to find Yan Dhanda in the box whose shot was easily caught by Muller, and Forrest’s powerful shot flew over the German’s net shortly after.
Gordon had had a quiet evening up until the 44th minute, with his first action of the match almost being a catastrophic one if not for Malachi Boateng, the midfielder providing an acrobatic goal-line clearance after his keeper got a punch from a corner totally wrong and presented Lennard Maloney with the chance to head into an open net.
Hearts had began to lost their way and lost that extra energy in the second that had given them the upper-hand in the first, and it was the added energy of Mathias Honsak from the bench at half-time that proved to be the difference-maker on 57 minutes.
The Austrian burst past Forrester and fizzed the cross towards Conteh who headed past Gordon to give the travelling side the lead, thus denying the veteran stopper the chance at his 100th clean sheet on his 300th appearance for the club.
Bayern Munich loanee Paul Wanner, one of the most talked-up talents in German football, took to the field for Heidenheim on the hour mark and was instantly into the thick of it, flashing a warning shot across the face of Gordon’s goal.
Sensing Hearts were losing things in midfield, Critchley opted for the tenacity and bite of Cammy Devlin from the bench as well as the raw pace of Kenneth Vargas, with Dhanda and Beni Baningime making way.
The game was beginning to peter out, with Heidenheim in cruise control, and the big chance Tynecastle had been begging for in the second-half was passed up by Shankland with nine to play, skying his off-balance volley following a threatening delivery from Penrice.
After the big miss from Shankland, Hearts were once again made to pay as the Heidenheim substitutes Omar Traore and Jan Schoppner combined effectively in the 88th minute to kill off any hope of the Jambos taking a point late in the game.
Match Analysis
Neil Critchley stated pre-match that he wanted Tynecastle to be ‘horrible’ for Heidenheim, a message to the supporters, but it seemed like that same memo was also delivered to the players on the park as Hearts got right in their opponent’s faces and pressed fast, looking to make things as uncomfortable as possible.
Whilst Heidenheim grew into the first-half, the chances were all going the way of the side in maroon, and Critchley would have hoped his side would have found the net by the time the half-time whistle had gone.
With Heidenheim reeling and the Jambos not taking the chances afforded to them, it would come back to bite them in the second-half.
The gulf in quality was evidenced by the difference in just how clinical both sides were in front of goal, and Heidenheim gleefully took the first real clear-cut chance in front of goal.
Hearts also began to tire in the second-half, gassed out by the monumental effort they had put in in the first-half that had ultimately amounted to nothing.
Lawrence Shankland continued to look off the boil in front of goal, once again lacking that conviction when one-on-one that made him one of the fiercest sharp-shooters in Scotland last season.
Rueing missed chances was the real story of the match, and it is a problem that Critchley will have to try and solve with 3 games remaining in the league phase, 2 of them away from home.
What did the managers have to say?
Neil Critchley, Heart of Midlothian Head Coach: “The one thing to take away from tonight is you have to score when you are on top.
“We weren’t clinical enough in front of goal and then we got punished with two real moments of quality, the first goal in particular.”
“I’m disappointed with the result but not the performance, we played equally as well tonight as we did against Omonoia, we just didn’t score when we were on top.”
“If we had taken our chances then I think the game was there for us to win.”
“Sometimes you don’t get what you deserve, and we didn’t get what we deserved tonight.”
