Mainz manager Christian Heidel has followed most 05 games in the stadium, but such a lightning start is new territory even for him.
“I can’t think of any game in which we’ve led 2-0 so quickly, at least not a first league game,” he said. The club was promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time in 2004 and has played in the first division without interruption since 2009. In the 3-0 win over VfL Wolfsburg this Saturday, Jonathan Burkardt (2nd) and Anton Stach (4th) set the course for victory early on.
Actually, the Lower Saxons have the quality to turn around such an intermediate score, but yesterday they failed due to the clever plan of the Nullfünfer, who did not let the VfL get into the game and remained dangerous themselves. “Even in the second half, when we were not as dominant as in the first, we were very disciplined. We always tried to put pressure on the front and thus keep the opponent away from our own goal. We did many, many things really well after a couple of not so good performances,” Bo Svensson concluded.
Two players stood out from the cohesive team performance: Anton Stach and Jae-Sung Lee. Stach was in the starting line-up for the first time as the lone six, deputising for the injured Dominik Kohr. Lee’s performance at the eight position continues to show an upward trend, and the South Korean was involved in the preparation of the two quick goals. In the 1:0 he passed a ball to Leandro Barreiro, who set Burkardt up perfectly. For the 2:0, he passed a short corner from the right into the centre, where Stach shot from around 20 metres and scored his first Bundesliga goal. The team had rehearsed this variation in final training on Friday. “It’s nice that Anton had spared himself for the good shot today, yesterday the balls flew somewhere else,” smiled Svensson.
Heidel: “It played into our favour “
“Wolfsburg had to come immediately after the 2:0, that played into our cards,” said Heidel. “I don’t want to get too euphoric, but I thought the game today was a real Mainz-05 game. I can’t remember Wolfsburg creating a goal-scoring chance, despite the quality VfL have on the offensive. That shows what we did defensively,” said the sporting director, praising the FSV team’s overall performance.
