Goodbye relegation battle: How Mainz 05 have improved since previous meeting with Bayern

When 1. FSV Mainz 05 and FC Bayern last met five months ago, things looked quite different for Mainz. The Rhineland-Palatinate club had experienced a miserable campaign up to that point and travelled to Munich with six points from 13 matches, bottom of the table and having just parted company with coach Bo Henriksen. Urs Fischer made his debut in the 05ers’ dugout at the Allianz Arena and breathed new life into the relegation strugglers. Although stats provider Opta registered 24-5 shots on goal and a staggering 85 percent possession for the hosts, the Munich men needed a late penalty from Harry Kane to salvage a 2-2 draw against the tireless visitors (132.5 km distance run is the highest number this season).

That was already a first sign of what has played out over the last half-season. Fischer has got Mainz back on track with his calm manner. The Swiss has guided the team to tenth place with 28 points from 17 matches, which puts them in an impressive seventh place in this period. Having conceded 24 goals across the first 13 matchdays, the average goals conceded has fallen from 1.8 to 1.2 per game under his guidance. What’s more, the 60-year-old has overseen just three defeats in 17 Bundesliga games – only FC Bayern can better that in the same time frame (one defeat).

They’ve gone from being five behind points the relegation play-off place to being eight points above it. A victory over Bayern on Saturday (15:30 CEST) could even secure Mainz’s top-flight status, should St. Pauli fail to beat Heidenheim at the same time. “The team are solid, don’t get thrown off course easily and that makes me optimistic,” said Mainz’s board member for sport Christian Heidel in a recent press conference, praising the coach. “We’re optimally prepared for every opponent, he really goes through them with a fine tooth comb beforehand. That gives the team great assurance.”

Saying that, Fischer is not the first Mainz boss to take the club on a rollercoaster ride. His predecessor Henriksen also took over with FSV in the relegation zone in February 2023, kept them up and then sensationally qualified for the Conference League the following year. There, Mainz reached the quarter-finals of a European competition for the first time in the club’s history under Fischer. Despite winning 2-0 in the first leg against RC Strasbourg, they narrowly missed out on the final four after a 4-0 loss in the return leg last week. Mainz may be without a win in three games in all competitions currently, but they go into the meeting with FCB with momentum from the last-gasp draw at Borussia Mönchengladbach – the equaliser was scored in the 98th minute.

The performances in Europe as well as the stability in the league emphasise that Bayern now face a tricky away match against awkward opponents – as they’ve experienced many times recently. Four of the last five Bundesliga meetings at the MEWA Arena have ended in defeat, so there are plenty of players in the current Mainz squad who know what it feels like to beat the champions. The team are experienced overall – FSV have fielded the oldest starting XI on average in the German top flight this season at 29 years and 94 days. The standout player in the group is 29-year-old midfielder Nadiem Amiri, who’s the team’s top scorer by some distance with 11 goals. Goalkeeper Daniel Batz, who had just four Bundesliga appearances to his name before this season, has impressed between the posts. At the age of 35, he’s shown that maybe he should’ve been given a chance in the top flight earlier – he made eight saves in the reverse fixture against Bayern alone.

It’s hardly to be expected that the hosts will match Bayern on a technical level on Saturday – Fischer’s men have the second-worst pass completion rate in the league (74.9%) after Union Berlin (71.5%). Mainz are also one of the teams who have scored the fewest goals from open play, having netted almost half of their 36 goals this season from set pieces (17). Rather, the 05ers will try to wear the visitors down with a battling display, and Vincent Kompany’s side will need to stand up to that if they’re to continue their own run of success.