Match Report: Mainz 05 (H)

Pre-match

Endlich wieder Fußball, as they say.

After a strong end to the Hinrunde with that stunning last gasp win at Köln, we ended the winter break by welcoming bottom feeders Mainz to the icy, snow covered ski resort they call Berlin.

While the promised snowmageddon on Friday turned out to be a pathetic, solitary flake on the wind, there was still a lot of residual snow and ice making the walk to the stadium a lot more of an action sport than normal.

A call had gone around the fan groups during the week for help clearing the pitch and deicing the stadium, and it looked in good shape as we arrived to clear afternoon skies.

It didn't feel too cold as we walked in, people sensibly heading straight to the stands with steaming pints of Glühwein for warmth.

The squad was lacking Rothe and Skarke but otherwise looked strong. Burcu started instead of Ansah with Burke on the other flank supporting Ilic.

The bottom of the league visitors had some very familiar faces - old youth player Maloney, recent attack pixie Hollerbach got good ovations.

But by far the biggest Fußball Gott of the day of course went to the one and only Urs Fischer, recently taking the reins at Mainz.

First Half

The Waldseite sensibly started is with some bouncing chants to keep everyone warm. The away fans doing the same as the mercury dipped below -5.

Mainz won the toss and I think it was Hollerbach who cunningly made the teams swap ends. We were playing towards the Waldseite in the first half, something I cannot remember ever happening.

We kicked off and immediately had Mainz under pressure, launching balls down the right for Burke, Khedira and Haberer to battle for.

Mainz looked pretty shaky, as you'd expect. We came so close to an early goal, Khedira refusing to give up on a ball on the right of the box, eventually leaving his defender on the ground and emerging with the ball at the byline on the edge of the six yard box.

With Mainz scrambling back to cover the near post, he pulled it back for the onrushing Burcu who seemed certain to score, but he mishit the shot and it screwed agonisingly wide of the far post.

That was about as good as it for for quite some time, a few nice Burcu touches aside. He has something of the Mahrez about him, all louche elegance and shimmies, but conditions were not in his favour today.

We quickly lost all sense of cohesion, Mainz happy to sit back and unleash Tietz on the counter, ably assisted by Amiri and the familiar scampering form of Hollerbach.

For once it was Union trying to play the football.

But our efforts were hindered by both the pitch, which had all the structural integrity of a wet cake, and our sudden, total inability to pass a football.

The first half was a true collective effort of shanked passes, layoffs to nobody, wrong decisions, miscommunications. It wasn't so pretty.

Just about nothing bounced our way, and Mainz grew into the game. The referee was also causing consternation with some very soft calls and an insane yellow card for Leite after the briefest touch sent Hollerbach into a trademark swan dive.

We had already had two or three big warnings - a free header saved by Rönnow, a Hollerbach drive from an angle inside the box, a glaring miss flagged for offside - when the seemingly inevitable goal came.

Doekhi was stepping up to join attacks, quite a good plan given his goalscoring form.

However this did leave gaps, and Mainz managed to find one with what looked like a peach of a through ball from the halfway line.

Amiri was suddenly in and volleyed acrobatically past Rönnow to give the visitors the lead.

We almost hit back right from kick off. We launched another long ball to the right. It hung in the air long enough for the guy next to me to shout a frustrated 'Was war das denn Alter?'. But Haberer won the header, Khedira combined with Burke, and a worrying outbreak of neat one touch football found Burcu on the edge of the box.

He almost tried to pass it into the corner and it whispered just the wrong side of the post.

For the most part though, we remained a bit muddled and disjointed. There wasn't much movement and whatever we tried wouldn't stick. Ilic was having a tough time, battling as ever but rarely able to link up with Burcu and Burke.

We were also surprisingly passive in pressing and tackling, at one point a Mainz player managed to saunter upfield, fall fully over and still not get dispossessed because we were backing off so much. It was a bit too easy for them.

Rönnow had to be sharp to hold a long range low strike and Hollerbach was finding space to drive into, before Union finally showed signs of life.

A corner caused chaos and dropped onto Burke's toe, but it hit him more than anything and dribbled wide.

Burcu and Kohn started to link up and get some dangerous crosses in.

A fizzing cross from the left, this time I think from Leite of all people, was palmed out by a sprawling keeper, it flew to Burke with an open goal at how mercy, but although his first time side foot volley looked sick as heck, the actual ball careened over the bar.

And so we closed out a first half a goal down but having fashioned the better chances.

Second Half

We were starting to feel the cold by now, dusk falling and clouds gathering over the Alte Försterei. More Glühwein was procured.

Snow started to fall as we kicked off, the Waldseite launching into Walking in a Winter Wonderland at the sight of it, as is right and proper.

The festive scenes did little to change our on pitch fortunes, Mainz looking relatively comfortable as we continued to stutter.

Mainz were happy to buy into their new manager's style, sit deep and break. As the half wore on it paid off for them again, a fast escape down the left leading to a low cross which found a sliding Hollerbach at the back post to double the visitors' lead.

Our former tyro realised how close he was to the Waldseite and sensibly held up his hands in a gesture of please don't throw shit at me.

When he left I was sad and today he showed why, probably the standout player and able to handle the conditions with ease.

He almost made the afternoon even worse moments later when his jinking run let him get a shot off from an angle in the box, a beautiful hit cannoning off the bar.

Hollerbach was subbed shortly after, and it was subs that dramatically changed this game. Hollerbach going off ended any kind of threat from Mainz, while we bought on Schäfer, Jeong, Trimmel, Ansah and even the lesser-spotted Ljubicic.

Schäfer immediately gave us bite in a midfield that had been overwhelmed for much of the afternoon. You rather feel he's made for horrible pitches on cold days, he immediately relished sprinting around and battering people twice his size.

We certainly looked a lot better after the changes, but pulling a goal back was still a surprise, particularly as it came from the bit of the pitch I can never see.

No idea who crossed the ball, I'd guess Ansah, but anyway in it came at knee height, and who should be there, diving like a majestic salmon to cushion a glancing header into the corner, but our very own Woo-Yeong Jeong. Game on!

It was full throttle Union thereafter, Mainz clinging on.

Schäfer was the impact player for me, and he almost scored the dreamiest of goals to go with the thunder bastard he scored at Köln.

After I think Ansah wriggled into the box and was denied by the onrushing goalie, the ball rolled back out for Schäfer about 25 yards from goal. He floated a delicious first time chip back over the keeper's head, and was bitterly unlucky to see it hit the bar.

Ilic looked certain to score the rebound with an open goal at his mercy, but for the second time in the game we blazed it over the bar on the volley.

Ilic cut a disconsolate figure afterwards, knowing it was a good chance. He just needs one to bounce in off his arse or something and the goals will start flowing again, I'm sure.

It seemed like we may have blown the chance to level, but in the last few minutes of normal time we won a presentable free kick wide on the left. Köhn stood over it, a couple of our more Glühwein-fortified members urging him to shoot as the keeper was way over to one side.

Instead he whipped in a delightful ball which the irrepressible Doekhi leapt to crash home off the underside of the bar, Ljubicic making sure it was in. Cue bedlam and much flying of hot sugary alcohol in the stands.

On the pitch it was given to Doekhi but was since been credited to Ljubicic, nice for him to get a goal even if he may be in the way out in this window if rumours are to be believed.

We made half a push for victory but in the end were content to take the draw, not an ideal result against the bottom side but the always good feeling of fighting back late from two goals down.

A strange game overall. Mainz looked a better side than their position suggests, and Urs nearly pulled off a trademark win. Union did not play that well for the most part but spurned a hatful of chances and pulled it out of the bag when it mattered.

We tried to make sense of it all and also regain feeling in our extremities in the Wetherspoons-meets-darts-crowd surrounds of the Abseitsfalle.

You always meet interesting people in the Abseitsfalle.

A cheerful man heard us speaking English and came to warmly welcome us in extremely fast German, in a monologue which managed to combine warm words of welcome with hos seemingly find memories of fighting against the Dutch in Sweden, before tottering off into the night.

We had a surprisingly functional conversation where we spoke in German and the German guy spoke in English about the error of letting Jamie Leweling go as we watched him bang in about four for Stuttgart on the big screen.

In the bathrooms, the women solved the age old problem of long queues for the ladies and institutionally poor bathroom design by simply using the mens' cubicles en masse, to much schoolboy tittering. In the car park, a snowball fight broke out.

The Abseitsfalle. A rich tapestry. Highly recommend.

We half trudged, half skated, shivering back to the S-Bahn, content with a point from a losing position and always happy to have spent an afternoon at the most beautiful place in the world.

No better way to almost lose a toe to frostbite.

Eisern!

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By @MarkJB on Bluesky