“Consistency is something we need to address”

Another memorable season is now over for 1. FSV Mainz 05. Deep in trouble in the winter, the 05ers launched yet another fightback at the start of January and secured Bundesliga survival as early as matchday 32 with their 2-1 win away to St. Pauli. At the same time, FSV were also regularly in European action, with their Conference League run taking them all the way to the quarter-finals before Racing Strasbourg brought it to an end. Mainz underlined their qualities once again domestically and made a name for themselves on the European stage too.

On Sunday morning, the squad gathered at Bruchweg one last time in the 2025/26 season. The players came together for breakfast and were given their individual training plans for the summer break before heading away from their training base for around six weeks. They return on 28th June for the usual performance tests, with the first session of pre-season then scheduled for 1st July. Head coach Urs Fischer, board member for sport Christian Heidel and sporting director Niko Bungert were among the last to leave the WOLFGANG FRANK CAMPUS, having spent almost an hour speaking to journalists about the season just gone and the challenges ahead.

Urs Fischer spoke about...

...his successful mission: “It was extraordinary how the club managed to pull itself clear from the position it was in. I never saw it as an impossible job. The talks in December gave me a positive feeling, and that feeling proved right. We had a target and reached it much earlier than expected. That says a lot about everyone’s work. What we achieved here ranks very highly in my career. We all did a really good job together.”

...any doubts about taking the job: “Before my first training session, I did have a few thoughts going through my head: ‘Have you still got it?’ I’d been out of the game for two years, which was new for me. Suddenly I was back in the thick of it. Realising that I could still do it, that my messages were still getting through, was a relief. Later on, my assistant coach Markus Hoffmann and I laughed about those thoughts – but they were there.”

...securing survival with two matchdays to spare: “I wasn’t surprised, because you put the work in. In the end, you get what you deserve, and the team worked incredibly hard over all those months. They did a fantastic job and also handled the packed run of fixtures well, when we were just glad to get back to our own bed every now and then.”

...setbacks: “The defeats along the way maybe came at the right time. If you’re always successful, it’s difficult to keep developing. Defeats hurt, but they always teach you something too. One of the most successful NBA stars of all time once summed it up nicely. He basically said he would never have got to the top if he hadn’t had to learn to keep getting back up, again and again.”

...room for improvement: “Consistency is something we need to address. We have to make sure our level doesn’t drop as much from game to game. There aren’t many teams in the Bundesliga who perform at the same level throughout the season, but we want to be at our best as often as possible.”

...pure relief: “After the final whistle at St. Pauli, the tension was gone. It felt like an emptiness inside, like breathing out. You’re on edge the whole time, and then suddenly that was gone and we’d achieved our target.”

CHRISTIAN HEIDEL spoke about...

...the third successful fightback in five years: “You do feel a certain tension internally, but the most important thing is not to let that show. The team were able to keep working, and we got all our decisions right. Even so, we felt our league position made the team look worse than it actually was. The situation was never hopeless, but of course it was tense. It wasn’t as extreme as Wolfsburg, when we stayed up on the final day. This was another extraordinary effort, but we obviously don’t want to have to produce something like this every year.”

...a key turning point: “For me, it was the game in Munich, Urs’s first league match in December. Coming away with a point after leading for so long did the team a lot of good and changed the mood. Before that, we were trying not to lose. After that, the belief was back that we could win games again and achieve something big together.”

...squad planning: “Silas and Hollerbach won’t be available at the start of the season. Of course that will have an impact on our squad planning. For us, it’s important that we have a squad capable of competing in the Bundesliga at any point. That’s how we’re trying to set ourselves up. What is clear to me more generally this year, though, is that the World Cup will delay a lot of transfer business.”

...the age profile of the squad: “We’re aware of the discussion and we certainly won’t be signing another 34-year-old now. But fundamentally, for us there are good players and less good players. When you look at our data, everything is fine – distance covered, sprints recorded, all of it is excellent. The team also has experience, and that is very valuable.”

...Sano’s possible departure: “Of course I hope he has a great World Cup. As things stand, there are no signs that he will leave us. If he does go, then of course we would have to bring someone in. Mainz 05 won’t be able to go out and get a player at his level now – he wasn’t at that level himself two years ago. The later offers arrive in the transfer window, the less likely we would be to say yes.”

NIKO BUNGERT spoke about...

...how things unfolded in the winter and the squad rebuild: “The planning began when Urs arrived and we exchanged ideas. Of course, we had already done plenty of groundwork by then. That made it easier to start putting things in place. Urs’s observations also helped point us in the right direction. In the winter, we were able to use the reputation we’ve built over recent years to our advantage and convince players that we as a club believed we could stay up again. Urs’s good reputation certainly helped as well.”

...the difficult first half of the season: “You have to look at every season on its own. Once again, there were lots of different reasons why we ended up where we did. We questioned ourselves, but there were also suspensions and long-term injuries. We still want to stay true to ourselves and not have a squad of 30 to 35 players. We can’t afford that financially anyway. Of course we want to avoid situations like that, but there will always be things you simply can’t plan for.”

...loanee Stefan Posch: “We’re really happy with Poschi, and we’ve made it clear that we’d like to continue working with him. The signs are positive and he fits in here, but he belongs to Como – so there are three parties involved.”

...Kacper Potulski’s breakthrough and other talents: “Kacper was given the chance in the summer to show what he could do in first-team training, and he impressed two coaches. This summer, we’ll again have a lot of young players involved who can make an impression, especially at the start of pre-season. It will happen more quickly for some than for others, and that’s completely normal.”

...the plans for Nelson Weiper: “We still believe Nelly can play a good role here in the years ahead. But it’s also clear both he and we would have liked him to get more minutes. We’ve got a lot of conversations to have. Maybe a change of scenery could help at some point, but nothing is concrete.”