Those predicting the venue of Vincent Kompany’s first Bundesliga defeat as Bayern Munich manager might not have had this one circled in red on their fixture calendar. Maybe they should have, though. This is becoming the Rekordmeister’s new favourite banana skin. After a fourth league loss at Mainz in five seasons one could place the 05ers in the small pantheon of relative Bayern-slayers, besides Eintracht Frankfurt and Borussia Mönchengladbach. That, though, would be conveniently forgetting Bayern’s stroll here in the DfB Pokal six weeks ago or their 8-1 demolition of Bo Henriksen’s team in Munich last spring.
More currently, the injury situation that worked Eric Dier into a first Bundesliga start of the season and left Daniel Peretz and Thomas Müller standing in for Manuel Neuer and Harry Kane left clues on the teamsheet. The signs had been there in last Tuesday’s Champions League win over Shakhtar Donetsk in Gelsenkirchen, with 5-1 impressive on paper but flatteringly garnished with late goals, including Michael Olise’s extraordinary solo effort. This was a weary, worn-out looking Bayern that had a virtual monopoly on possession but created very little in the way of real goalscoring opportunities.
But if the king is dead, long live the king. Mainz merit their praise and more. This victory, celebrated wildly by coach Henriksen and his staff at full time, was deserved and catapulted Mainz into sixth place. They eventually finished the weekend in seventh after Stuttgart’s Sunday win at Heidenheim. If those with memories of recent Bayern visits here might not have been knocked sideways by the result, they would have been able unlikely to foresee the major protagonists.
Lee Jae-sung could make a case for being a low-key Bayern nemesis. The South Korean forward has now been on the winning side against them three times; back in April 2023 for Mainz, at the end of an epic penalty shootout with his previous club Holstein Kiel in the 2021 Pokal, and now here. His two goals were canny finishes, especially the spin-on-a-sixpence finish to unleash euphoria in the Mewa Arena and give Mainz daylight on the hour.
They had their own cause for injury lament when Germany striker Jonathan Burkhardt was forced off holding his thigh in the first 15 minutes. It was a turning point in an unexpected way. His replacement, 21-year-old Armindo Sieb, created both goals for Lee, his pass deflected to the striker for the first before Lee gathered Sieb’s cross from out wide to score the second. Lee had been enormously frustrated to spend the entirety of the Pokal loss to Bayern on the bench; Sieb is actually on loan to Mainz from Bayern. They both had their point to prove, and their enterprise won their team the match. “If you only defend against Bayern, you will die a slow death,” said Henriksen.
Let’s be clear – the coach deserves his flowers too. So much has changed for Mainz in the last year. They had a mere nine points at this time last season (compared to 22 now) and looked doomed to relegation. Henriksen didn’t take over from the struggling Jan Siewert – already their second coach of last season – until February and when Mainz were flamed at the Allianz less than a month later, the reality was stark. The former FC Zürich coach shepherded his new team unbeaten through the remaining nine games of the season as they exited the relegation zone and finished 13th.
“I think the most important thing in football,” Henriksen said, “is you must have the courage to have the ball.” Having beaten Borussia Dortmund and now Bayern, as well as having lost a seven-goal thriller at Wolfsburg their guts are not in doubt. Certainly Bayern will be glad to see the back of them.
Freiburg 3-2 Wolfsburg, Augsburg 0-2 Bayer Leverkusen, Monchengladbach 4-1 Holstein Kiel, Mainz 2-1 Bayern Munich, Union Berlin 1-1 Bochum, St Pauli 0-2 Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund 1-1 Hoffenheim, Heidenheim 1-3 Stuttgart, RB Leipzig 2-1 Eintracht Frankfurt
Talking points
So it was a good weekend for Bayer Leverkusen, then; not just because of the 2-0 win at Augsburg that closed the gap to Bayern to four points, but due to the realisation that Florian Wirtz has already signed an extension to his current deal, which ran to 2027, as the Germany playmaker has agreed to remain next season regardless of whether Xabi Alonso stays or not. Wirtz is off the market partly because of just how good as he is – as he underlined with a classy goal on Saturday, taking him to 15 and eight assists for club and country this season – with a projected transfer fee of €150m-plus and expected annual wage of €20m putting him beyond Bayern’s current means, for example, with Jamal Musiala and Joshua Kimmich up for imminent renewal. Wirtz won’t earn as much by staying at BayArena but will receive the highest salary in the club’s history, thought to be well in excess of €10m per year.
RB Leipzig also managed to close the gap at the top with a 2-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt late on Sunday evening, with Loïs Openda’s emphatic finish deciding a high-quality game. Marco Rose’s side are now level on points with Eintracht in the top four, relieving some of the pressure from their disastrous Champions League campaign.
Not so Dortmund, with old boy Jacob Bruun Larsen’s stoppage-time equaliser for Hoffenheim condemning them to a third straight home game without a win after their 100% start to the season at Signal Iduna Park. The wan performance was perhaps even more alarming than the result. “I have to be honest,” a visibly annoyed Nico Schlotterbeck, who made an incredible recovery to play after damaging ankle ligaments against Barcelona in the week, told Dazn. “We played an incredibly bad game.” BVB now sit in eighth.
What should have crowned a week of celebration at Union Berlin turned sour. Last Monday the capital club launched a share issue to sell equity in their Stadion An der Alten Försterei to supporters, in a similar initiative to the plan recently authored by St Pauli. Yet in stoppage time of the visit of rock-bottom Bochum, away goalkeeper Patrick Drewes was hit on the head by a lighter, causing a 27-minute delay. With all their substitutes used, Dieter Hecking’s side were forced to put striker Philipp Hofmann in goal, and the two teams agreed to play out the last few minutes without trying to score, just knocking the ball about between themselves to whistles. What happens next remains to be seen; a 27-year-old was arrested in connection with the incident and the DFB could fine Union, order them to play matches behind closed doors or even award the game to Bochum (which would be a first win of the season).
There was a pyro-inspired stoppage early in the second half of St Pauli’s home defeat by Werder Bremen (Marvin Ducksch scored a fine goal to clinch a 2-0 win for the visitors), with club president Oke Göttlich pre-emptively regretful of the forthcoming financial consequences for a club on modest means. “We want to invest in the sport,” he said, “in the club’s infrastructure, in new projects. Instead, hundreds of thousands of euros are being wasted every year.”
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 14 | 30 | 33 |
| 2 | Bayer Leverkusen | 14 | 12 | 29 |
| 3 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 14 | 14 | 27 |
| 4 | RB Leipzig | 14 | 8 | 27 |
| 5 | Freiburg | 14 | 1 | 24 |
| 6 | Stuttgart | 14 | 5 | 23 |
| 7 | Mainz | 14 | 6 | 22 |
| 8 | Borussia Dortmund | 14 | 4 | 22 |
| 9 | Werder Bremen | 14 | -2 | 22 |
| 10 | Wolfsburg | 14 | 6 | 21 |
| 11 | Borussia M'gladbach | 14 | 4 | 21 |
| 12 | Union Berlin | 14 | -2 | 17 |
| 13 | Augsburg | 14 | -11 | 16 |
| 14 | Hoffenheim | 14 | -7 | 14 |
| 15 | St Pauli | 14 | -8 | 11 |
| 16 | Heidenheim | 14 | -13 | 10 |
| 17 | Holstein Kiel | 14 | -23 | 5 |
| 18 | VfL Bochum | 14 | -24 | 3 |
