Amiri’s last-gasp penalty rescues a point against Gladbach

1. FSV Mainz 05 ended their second consecutive busy week with a 1-1 draw against Borussia Mönchengladbach. Nadiem Amiri was the hero on the night, converting his penalty with what proved to be the last kick of the game. The 05ers spent most of the game chasing a deficit following Joe Scally’s early opener, but found themselves either denied by Moritz Nicolas or undone by their own lack of precision. Urs Fischer's side delivered the response he had demanded in his pre-match press conference.

Fischer made four changes to the side that lost in Strasbourg on Thursday. Captain Silvan Widmer, Phillipp Mwene, Sota Kawasaki and Nelly Weiper were replaced in the starting lineup by Anthony Caci, Nikolas Veratschnig, Nadiem Amiri and Sheraldo Becker.

FSV create chances, Gladbach take theirs

Mainz started well and created two chances within the first few minutes. Caci’s cross found Becker’s head, but he couldn’t direct his effort on target (4’). The next attack came down the left through Veratschnig, who found Phillip Tietz in the centre. His effort from close range was denied by Nicolas (6’). The hosts made no mistake with their first chance of the game after being given far too much space on the edge of the Mainz box. Haris Tabakovic laid the ball off to Hugo Bolin, who then picked out Scally on the edge of the box. The American picked his spot and hit a precise effort towards goal that nestled in the bottom corner – 1-0 Gladbach (7’). Mainz were the more active side and created the next chance for Becker. Dominik Kohr found him after winning the ball high up the pitch, but his shot was straight at Nicolas (15’). The game settled down a bit after that, with the only notable entries on the stat sheet coming from the yellow cards shown to Kohr and Caci in the 21st and 22nd minutes respectively.

Mainz were then left breathing a sigh of relief on the 30-minute mark. The completely unmarked Jens Castrop found himself with the ball around ten yards out and fired his shot, only to see it strike his teammate Nico Elvedi, who was lying on the ground (31’). That block prevented what would have been a somewhat fortunate 2-0 Gladbach lead. Fischer’s side came back into the game after that. Kaishu Sano drove forwards and set up Becker, who created space on the edge of the box well, but saw his shot deflected up and over the bar (34’). The final noteworthy chance also fell to the visitors. Amiri tried a volley from the edge of the box which got deflected and looped up into the air. Nicolas still had to be alert to tip it over the bar (42’). The whistle blew for half time shortly after, with everything still to play for at Borussia-Park.

FSV push forwards and earn equaliser at the death

The second half had barely started before Gladbach looked like scoring a second. A mistake in their build-up play led to Mainz turning the ball over, after which Kevin Stöger set up Castrop, however Stefan Posch got there in the nick of time to clear the danger (46’). The visitors got their chance five minutes later through Nebel, whose deflected effort went just wide after some nice link-up play between Amiri and Caci (51’). This set the tone for the rest of the half. Mainz kept the ball moving and searched for gaps, while Gladbach sat back and waited for opportunities to counter. The 05ers did make the odd error here and there, but recovered quickly and overall defended well. Fischer made his first changes after around an hour, bringing Mwene and Armindo Sieb on for Veratschnig and Becker. Sieb got involved straight away and laid the ball off to Nebel, but Nicolas was there again to deny him (67’). Mainz kept pushing and creating chances. Caci whipped in another cross in the 70th minute, but Tietz’s effort went just wide. The striker then had another attempt from the edge of the box, but Nicolas got down well to his left to make the save (72’). The exhausted Caci and Nebel were then brought off, with Widmer and William Bøving getting the final 15 minutes of the game.

The visitors were now fully in control, creating more chances and playing some nice football. The only thing they couldn’t do was score. Mainz worked the ball nicely and da Costa crossed to Tietz, but his header found the arms of Nicolas (81’). Time was running out and Fischer threw everything forwards by bringing on Weiper for da Costa. For a brief moment it seemed like genius from the Mainz head coach. Amiri delivered a free kick, which Weiper got on the end of and sent a looping header up and over Nicolas and into the back of the net (87’). A brief VAR check saw that the academy graduate was offside by a couple of centimetres and he was denied what would have been a first Bundesliga goal of the season. The game seemed decided when Sieb saw his effort blocked in the fourth of five minutes of added time. In the very last second, Yannik Engelhardt fouled Mwene, leaving referee Tobias Welz no choice but to point to the spot. Despite the long delay, Amiri kept his cool and slotted home to rescue a well-deserved point with the last kick of the game (90+8’).

While Borussia simply tried to see out the result, Mainz never gave up and had come close to scoring several times. The equaliser puts them on 34 points at the end of matchday 30, keeping Gladbach three points behind them. Next Saturday (15:30 CEST), the sold-out MEWA ARENA hosts the penultimate home game of the season against newly crowned Bundesliga champions Bayern München. With four matchdays remaining, the gap to the relegation play-off spot (16th place) remains a solid eight points.