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In Mainz they can celebrate again at the moment
Photo: Alex Grimm / Getty Images
It is currently very difficult days for Mainz.
Today is Shrove Monday, and Shrovetide does not take place.
Apart from Cologne, there is probably no other city whose self-image is so closely related to the fifth season.
Mainz will not remain Mainz without Carnival.
On the other hand, the days are very good for Mainz 05.
You wouldn't have thought that a few weeks ago.
But the mood at the Bundesliga club has changed fundamentally with the start of the second half of the season.
Football teams are sensitive organisms and sometimes it takes a single experience to fundamentally change the atmosphere in and around a club.
The third man seems the right one
At Mainz 05 it was the game on the 18th matchday.
RB Leipzig was the opponent, actually a hardly solvable task for a table penultimate who had a terrible first half of the season with seven points behind them.
But in this game things worked out that otherwise didn't work, luck came along and in the end the Mainz team had defeated the Champions League round of 16 3-2.
The first home win of the season, in the tenth attempt.
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The new coach Bo Svensson
Photo: Thomas Frey / dpa
It was the signal that something is still possible this season, and Mainz 05 has been a different team since then.
And Bo Svensson, the third Mainz coach this season, finally seems to be the right man for this team.
Svensson, a Dane with a Mainz past as a professional, gave the team a completely different attitude within a few weeks of starting his job.
Anyone who watched the team at Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday, as well as Leipzig in completely different regions of the table, saw a team that courageously and confidently accepted its task from the start.
Exactly the opposite of what you actually expect when a relegation candidate competes with a top team.
The Mainz team worked, no, they created numerous scoring opportunities, and if the Leverkusen team had brought their 2-0 lead over time, the guests would have been patted encouragingly on the back after the game.
But luck also stood by Svensson's side.
The two players, Robert Glatzel and Kevin Stöger, who were substituted on by him in the closing stages, turned the 0: 2 into a 2: 2 in the final minutes, and there was no one who would not have found it fair.
Returnees are in charge
Mainz underwent major changes in personnel around Christmas time.
Not only is the trainer new, Svensson took over from the hapless Jan-Moritz Lichte, and the engine room was also converted and upgraded.
The former coach Martin Schmidt was hired as the sports director, and the former strong man in the club, Christian Heidel, is back in charge as the sports director.
Heidel was received as a kind of savior, after all, his name is firmly associated with the coaches Jürgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel, the glorious Mainz past, with Heidel, so many Mainz people believe, nothing can go wrong.
The former Mainz player Svensson, the former Mainz coach Schmidt and the former Mainz manager Heidel - Mainz 05 again have a triumvirate.
Mainz madness.
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Manager Christian Heidel
Photo: Fredrik Von Erichsen / dpa
In training, to everyone's surprise, Svensson mainly lets offensive actions practice, which is a completely new feeling in the team, which had only managed 15 goals in the first half of the season, one more than the bottom of the table Schalke.
With the winter additions Danny da Costa and Dominik Kohr from Main neighbor Eintracht Frankfurt, Mainz 05 has also caught two guys who are not known for a lack of self-confidence.
The team now looks homogeneous, it starts with goalkeeper Robin Zentner with his calm radiating effect, continues through a stabilized defense and leads to an attack in which even the veteran Ádám Szalai suddenly gets another chance.
The chaos of this season had started with the Szalai personnel, his suspension and the subsequent player strike had cost coach Achim Beierlorzer the job, later manager Rouven Schröder had to leave, who did not show a happy hand in dealing with the crisis.
The table situation in the club is still serious, nothing has changed in terms of placement in the previous weeks, the Mainz team are still penultimate, and yet there is something like optimism in the club.
Arminia Bielefeld in 16th place (two games less, meets Bayern Munich in the evening; 8.30 p.m.) is just three points away.
Land is in sight again.
The new self-confidence
It is a scene from the game against Union Berlin a week ago that illustrates the new spirit in Mainz quite well.
When there was a penalty for the team when the score was 0-0, the team had no permanent penalty taker - Svensson had deliberately left it to the team to decide who to compete.
Defender Moussa Niakhaté grabbed the ball. Niakhaté had his share of several goals conceded in January, his self-confidence was on the ground, and the local newspaper “Allgemeine Zeitung”, the local newspaper, asked in its headline, alarmed: “What about Moussa Niakhaté going? "
Then he scored twice against Leipzig at the beginning of the second half, and suddenly Moussa Niakhaté was different.
After that, against Union, he naturally put the ball on the penalty spot and turned it into the winning goal against the Berliners.
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