Augsburg’s 1-1 win over Hoffenheim on Matchday 27 extended their unbeaten streak to 11 games in the Bundesliga, with the latter's second-half equaliser ending a run 683 minutes without conceding a goal for goalkeeper Finn Dahmen. With Bayern Munich up next, are the Bavarians now outside contenders for European qualification?

Things move fast in football. Rewind 12 months to this stage last season and Bayer Leverkusen were 10 points clear at the top of the table and Mainz sat in the relegation play-off spot. Now the champions are six points off Bayern and the 05ers are chasing a maiden UEFA Champions League qualification.

As for Augsburg, it’s been a rollercoaster of a year. After 27 games of 2023/24, they were in seventh place on 36 points after an upturn following the October 2023 appointment of Jess Thorup. There were quiet whispers of a return to Europe and memories of past ties against the likes of Liverpool. However, a spring collapse in form saw the Bavarians earn only four more points and finish in 11th place.

The start of 2024/25 was also a mixed bag. A 2-1 win at home to Borussia Dortmund was a rare highlight among the first 16 games that produced just four victories, four draws and eight defeats as the Fuggerstädter sat only three points above the bottom three. 

The low point was undoubtedly a 5-1 thrashing at Holstein Kiel in the final game of 2024.

Watch: Holstein Kiel 5-1 Augsburg - highlights

“You can't sugarcoat it today; it was abysmal and catastrophic,” said striker Phillip Tietz in the aftermath. Coach Thorup added, “There are no words for a performance like that. Every point counts in the battle to survive at the bottom, but we didn’t show that fight today.”

Upon returning from the winter break, the club announced that they had made changes to their sports psychology team with the appointment of Mathias Kleine-Möllhoff from Werder Bremen, while Thorup called for his team to play with the “Augsburg DNA of passion, duels and commitment”. A 1-0 loss at home to Stuttgart after the restart wasn’t exactly the right response.

In the 11 fixtures since Matchday 17, though, Thorup’s side have been superb.

Watch: Borussia Dortmund 0-1 Augsburg - highlights

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Augsburg are unbeaten in that time – a new club record – winning six and drawing five. They claimed a 1-0 victory in Dortmund to complete the double over BVB for the first time; have beaten fellow European hopefuls Borussia Mönchengladbach (3-0), Wolfsburg (1-0) and held Freiburg, RB Leipzig and Mainz.

To put that run into context, their return of 23 points over the last 11 matchdays can only be topped by Bayern (26) and Leverkusen (24), and is six more than a team like Mainz, who have been so lauded of late for their push into the top four. The Fuggerstädter are also the only team not to lose in the Rückrunde.

They have more than doubled their points tally from the first 16 games and are level with their 2023/24 total. Although they may only be in ninth place, the Bavarians are three points above UEFA Champions League quarter-finalists Dortmund and only four points shy of a guaranteed European spot.

At a club like Augsburg, though, they are always quick to temper expectations. “I think in Augsburg we stay with both feet on the ground,” said captain Jeffrey Gouweleeuw after the Matchday 26 win over Wolfsburg, in which he became the first Dutch player to reach 250 Bundesliga appearances. All have come for the Fuggerstädter, while it was also the centre-back who hit the winner in Dortmund the previous week.

As for Thorup, when asked about the prospect of pushing for Europe, the former Copenhagen boss could only smile and laugh before insisting that all he wants to do for now is “enjoy the moment of another three points”. Pushed further, the Dane - now the club's most successful head coach in history - admitted that, “Everybody’s allowed to dream”.

Jess Thorup is keeping Augsburg feet on the ground amongst talk of Europe. - IMAGO/DiZ-PiX

One of his players no doubt in dreamland right now is Dahmen. An ankle injury at the start of the season meant the English-German goalkeeper lost his place to summer signing Nediljko Labrović. But he was reinstated at the start of the year and has not looked back since.

After conceding in the 1-1 draw at St. Pauli in the first weekend of February, he and Augsburg kept six straight clean sheets – another club record – before Andrej Kramarić's penalty for Hoffenheim ended his run.

That run took the 26-year-old into the all-time top 10 for longest runs without conceding a goal in the Bundesliga. He sits sixth overall, with the record standing at 884 minutes set by Stuttgart’s Timo Hildebrand.

To further underline what a good defensive run Augsburg are on, the three goals they conceded in the last 11 games is three fewer than any other team across Europe’s top five leagues. 

“Sure, I’m very proud, but I think it’s the whole team,” the former Mainz goalkeeper said after surpassing the 600-minute mark against Wolfsburg. “It’s the success of the whole team. The boys in front of me are doing an amazing job. And then if something comes through, I try to help them. It’s working really good at the moment. We’ll just try to keep that up.”

Coach Thorup also praised his keeper and echoed those sentiments: “He’s doing a great job, together with the whole team. We should not forget this is a team sport and everybody is defending with their lives. We saw players throwing themselves into balls today.

So, can Augsburg keep up their remarkable form and push for Europe? Their only previous continental campaign saw the Fuggerstädter reach the last 32 of the 2015/16 UEFA Europa League, where they lost 1-0 on aggregate to Liverpool.

Their next match, the visit of Bayern to the WWK Arena, will provide a huge test of Augsburg's credentials as the record champions go in search of the Meisterschale. And their other remaining fixtures will certainly push them all the way, with encounters against relegation strugglers Hoffenheim (a), Bochum (a), Kiel (h) and Union Berlin (h) coming amongst games against teams competing alongside them for Europe or even higher in Eintracht Frankfurt (h), Leverkusen (a) and Stuttgart (a).

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