With some delay, Jae-Sung Lee proves to be a real reinforcement for Mainz 05. For the first time, he is in the starting eleven three times in a row, scoring his first Bundesliga goal.
It was clear that the 29-year-old would need some time to adjust from the 2nd to the 1st league. Especially as the style of play at Mainz 05 is different from that at Holstein Kiel, where the South Korean international played 93 second division games in the three years before, scoring 19 goals and setting up 22 goals. Now it seems his time has come in Mainz. In the 2:1 win in Bielefeld he scored his first Bundesliga goal. It paid off that Lee had been involved in a Karim Onisiwo attack down the half-right. After Stefan Ortega Moreno failed to hold the Austrian’s shot, Lee was able to tap in.
It was the midfielder’s third starting appearance in a row in the league and DFB-Pokal. After Matchday 2, it had been quiet around the Mainz number 7. Initially, Lee had benefited from the Corona quarantine of eleven teammates. After the generally weak performance at VfL Bochum, however, he too found himself on the bench. The gruelling travels to the South Korean national team’s World Cup qualifying matches contributed to Lee’s inability to get past internal competition.
Svensson praises “link-up player” Lee
“He is doing very well at the moment,” praised Bo Svensson. “Jae-Sung has had three great games. You can see that he is very comfortable in this position, he is a link player between midfield and forward. He always has a good solution, even in a position where you are under a lot of pressure. In addition, he is also extremely hard-working against the ball and he digs in until he can’t anymore,” the 05 coach continues.
His sidekick Jean-Paul Boetius thinks the team’s performance in the English week was “outstanding, we are growing as a team”. The Dutchman and Lee occupy the two eight-man positions in Mainz’s 3-5-2, and with Lee having more offensive drive than Leandro Barreiro, who has been on the bench of late, Boetius now has to do more defensive work. The strikers also benefit from Lee’s skills, as the output of Jonathan Burkardt (4 goals/2 assists), Karim Onisiwo (2/4), Marcus Ingvartsen (1/0) and Adam Szalai (0/1) in the three most recent competitive games shows.
