“First and foremost, football is hard work”

Mainz 05 head coach expects fewer mistakes from his team in Mönchengladbach than in the recent Rhine-Main derby

FSV Mainz 05 will be reunited with some familiar faces on Saturday afternoon (15:30, live on SKY & 05ER.fm) at the ista-Borussia Park. While interim coach Jan-Moritz Lichte — once assistant coach and, for a few months, head coach at FSV — will take his place on the bench instead of the relieved Eugen Polanski, Foals board member for sport Rouven Schröder is also under pressure after the poor start to the season (three defeats) and wants to pick up the first points of the campaign against his former club. Mainz, who have been unbeaten away from home since February and are looking to make amends to some extent for the defeat in the Rhine-Main derby, will be aiming to prevent that. The head coach expects an improvement from his team and said at Thursday afternoon’s press conference: “First and foremost, football is hard work. You need virtues and have to get the basics right, which we did not do well enough,” with Urs Fischer expecting a clear step up from his team at the weekend.

05ER.TV 17.09.2026

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The Swiss coach also spoke about...

...the start to the season: “I would say it has been solid. Against Paderborn, we had phases that were decent, Hamburg was then very good, but not everything was bad against Frankfurt either. There was one thing we did not do well: first and foremost, football is hard work. You need virtues and you have to get the basics right, and we didn’t do that well enough. Nevertheless, I think we are on the right track.”

...further reasons for the recent defeat: “It is human nature: you set out to do a lot and then things don’t go that way. We lacked the basics and Eintracht did it very well. You had the feeling that they won every challenge and every second ball landed with them. Those are things you have to earn.”

...dealing with individual mistakes: “It is important that the lads try to learn from mistakes. When they happen, though, we don’t throw everything overboard. Certain mistakes should not be repeated, however, and that is something we have to get a grip on.”

...the personnel situation: “Kohr, Silas, Nebel and Widmer, as well as Zentner, are not involved. Martel is a candidate for the squad again; he has trained fully throughout the week. The starting XI would still come too soon, though.”

...what he expects from Gladbach after the coaching change: “We know how they might play and are preparing our team for it as best we can. But first and foremost, it is up to us to do things better on the pitch than we did against Frankfurt.”

...how to deal with the three-week break after the match: “It’s an unusual situation in the middle of a season. We won’t train in the first week and will start preparing for Leverkusen in the second week. I don’t have the perfect answer; we have to gain experience. We discussed it at length and decided on this approach.”

...Nadiem Amiri’s call-up to the Germany squad and the fact that four other Mainz academy products are in Jürgen Klopp’s squad: “We’re all delighted for Nadiem here. It’s always great when players are called up to the national team; everyone should be happy about that. The work here at the academy keeps bearing fruit. The club has to do a lot of things right, and that requires many people playing their part.”

First team Borussia Mönchengladbach in profile ahead of Saturday’s match Alle News Posch: “You can expect me to support the lads”