“Rewarded with great European nights”

Mainz 05 2-0 Samsunspor

Niko Bungert: “There’s a lot to be impressed with. First and foremost, it was a great football evening with a convincing team performance on the pitch. We’ve been building toward this in the last two games and today was another very big, impressive step. Three wins at home means we’re in the next round and we’re being rewarded with great European nights. When you see Urs Fischer’s work on a daily basis, what we show on the pitch doesn’t surprise me. We were compact and allowed very little. When things work, you can see that we’re capable of playing good football.”

Daniel Batz: “It was an energetic first half and we got close to taking the lead a few times. Overall, we played as a unit and repeatedly created things in transition. We also scored our goals at the right times and then saw the game out confidently after the break. Right now, little things are going our way again, which hasn’t always been the case in recent months.”

Paul Nebel: “It was a good performance at both ends. We had a clear plan and stuck to it until the end. Over the past few weeks, you could see that we’re on the right track and today it finally ended up with us winning. Of course, we want to take that with us into Sunday. We’re heading in the right direction and you can see the results of our training out on the pitch.”