Narrow win against Al Ahli

Mainz 05 battle past opponents from Dubai in Kufstein after a gruelling 90 minutes

Successful debut for the new away kit: 1. FSV Mainz 05 also managed to win their fifth friendly of the summer, but had to suffer in their meeting with Al Ahli on day five of the training camp in Brixental to see out a narrow 1-0 victory. The goal of the day came from Andreas Hanche-Olsen following a Paul Nebel corner. The exertions of the past few days were clearly visible in both teams. In the end, that will hardly have mattered to the roughly 350 Mainz supporters who had travelled to the Kufstein Arena, as these days are primarily about getting as close as possible to their team.

The head coach said after the final whistle: “I do think you could see a certain tiredness in the lads. But then, in possession, you have to be precise, otherwise you end up running. And today we were not precise. That meant we had to run too much, and that was our own fault. I don’t want to blame everything on tiredness; we simply were not good enough on the ball. We actually trained that really well during the week and tried things out. Today, though, it was almost timid. We didn’t want to make mistakes. You have to back yourself. We can try to correct mistakes, but it was simply very passive.”

The Mainz 05 first-team players clearly had several gruelling sessions from the previous days in their legs, and that seemed noticeable in the opening stages. Al Ahli pressed Mainz’s build-up early, with FSV struggling against the Dubai side’s aggressive approach, which repeatedly opened up transition opportunities. After one such move, Al Ahli appeared to take an early lead, but the goal was ruled out for offside (14’). By that point, FSV had already been forced into a change after Eric Martel got caught in the turf while making a clearance in his own penalty area and was unable to continue. Academy player Daniel Imafidon came on for the disappointed new signing, in a match in which Mainz still too often lacked precision or passing options going forward. That was also the case in the tenth minute, when Danny da Costa, captaining the Bundesliga side, sent Nebel down the right towards the byline with a fine pass, before the academy product played the ball low into the box, where there was no Mainz attacker in sight. As is not unusual in summer pre-season friendlies, especially in temperatures above 30 degrees, it was a tough watch in Kufstein. Robin Zentner was called into action for the first time after 18 minutes, saving an effort from Said Ezat from 20 metres. Mainz then found their way into the game a little better and seemed to have run some of the tiredness out of their legs. Six minutes later, it was Phillip Tietz who tried his luck from distance after a pass from Nebel, but he could not get his effort on target. Before the break, there were two more notable moments, one at each end. On the half-hour mark, Al Ahli combined their way into the Mainz penalty area and produced the most promising effort of the match up to that point with a drop-kick effort that narrowly missed the target (30’). Three minutes later, Nebel found Alynho Haidara at the other end, but he put the ball into the side-netting from close range (33’). The goalless scoreline at half-time was a completely fair reflection of the game.

Defences remain on top after the break

The second half was not exactly a festival of chances either. It was only after just over an hour that Imafidon did well to drive into the penalty area from the left and play the ball into the middle, where a defender cleared behind for a corner ahead of the onrushing Tietz (62’). Shortly afterwards, Mainz almost fell behind when Taiyu Yamasaki misjudged a long ball and Zentner had to make himself big to deny Guilherme da Silva Goncalves, who was running through freely on goal (69’). Instead, the breakthrough came at the other end a little later, even if it had not looked likely for long spells. Nebel whipped a corner towards the far post, where Hanche Olsen headed the ball over the line from three metres out (71’). FSV were in front, but had to stay alert again just two minutes later when Cesar Santos de Oliveira sent an 18-metre free-kick towards the goalkeeper’s side, which Zentner had anticipated (73’). It proved to be the final real chance of the match. In the closing stages, a curled Tietz free-kick missed the target by some distance, while Al Ahli’s attacking efforts in the final minutes also went unrewarded. In the end, Mainz threw themselves in front of every shot and, running on their last reserves of energy, battled their way to a narrow victory.

The exhausted FSV number nine, Philipp Tietz, also spoke after the match: “It was a real test, with heavy legs and tired minds. We had to push ourselves beyond our limits, and we did that. That is how you build the basic fitness you need for the season. The opposition did well, and we were prepared for that. After the break, we were better and, with the support of our fans as well, scored a deserved goal to take the lead. From my point of view, the win was therefore deserved. Seeing out a narrow lead is also a good experience. Of course, we are keeping our fingers crossed for Eric today. He is a really great guy who has integrated extremely well.”

Mainz continue on Saturday afternoon at 16:00 with a completely different line-up, when they face Udinese Calcio at the Mittersill football ground. This match will also be broadcast live on 05ER.tv.

FSV - Al Ahli 1:0 (0:0)

Mainz 05 : Zentner - Richter (61' Hong), da Costa, Hanche Olsen, Gruber, Yamasaki - Martel (8' Imafidon), Ruoppi (46' Kawasaki), Nebel - Tietz, Haidara (46' Debrah)

Goal : 1-0 Hanche-Olsen (71st minute)

Attendance : approx. 500
Referees : Stefan Gamper (Tayfun Yilmaz, Benedikt Guggenmos)