#defensive-solidity

#defensive-solidity

FC Bayern visit 1. FC Heidenheim on Sunday (17:30 CET) - and face opponents who have made notable progress lately. Following two heavy defeats, coach Frank Schmidt changed the formation to make his team more solid and compact. Since then, Heidenheim look more aggressive and clearer in their patterns again - and more awkward to play against. What that means for the upcoming encounter, what principles are behind Schmidt's approach and what the priorities are for the Munich men are revealed in the opposition profile.

A change of formation, from 4-2-3-1 to 3-4-2-1, by manager Jimmy Thelin has led to a run of five clean sheets in seven domestic games and a rise from bottom spot to seventh place, three points off the top six. Their newly found steel at the back means only Celtic and Rangers have taken more points over the past eight league matches.

I think we've had a lot of great qualifying campaigns in recent history and we've topped that with this one, so we can be really proud of the hard work that we put in. I know sometimes we maybe don't get the credit for these type of wins and campaigns, but we've done our job, we've done what we need to do and we've done it in style as well. We can be really proud of that and look forward to the new year now.