Increasing your own fame as a Bundesliga club in the first round of the DFB Cup is a difficult undertaking.
Either the favorite prevails confidently against the underdog, which is no longer an amateur club in all cases.
This then counts as the fulfillment of a duty.
Or it fails - which is commonly viewed as an embarrassment.
Or he wobbles without falling and trembles his way into the second round.
Just as FSV Mainz 05 did on Sunday at SV Elversberg.
Thanks to two equalizations by Jonathan Burkardt, both in the 89th and 116th minute prepared by his U-21 European champion colleague Anton Stach, and a few saves by goalkeeper Robin Zentner, the Mainz team got away with one and a half blue eyes. And also set a new club record: the longest penalty shoot-out in the club's history. 16 shooters competed, 15 scored, and with a score of 8: 7 for the Rheinhessen, the Elversberg Laurin von Piechowski ended the drama with a shot to the crossbar.
The certainty with which the eight Mainz players involved placed the ball in the net stood in stark contrast to the shortest penalty shoot-out in 05 history. That was not long ago and at the same time it was the most embarrassing: It took place on the eve of Christmas Eve last year, in the second round match against VfL Bochum, when it was also 2-2 after extra time. Then Ádám Szalai hit the post, Kevin Stöger hit the crossbar and Jean-Philippe Mateta produced a ridiculous shot. More Mainz didn't have to work, as the Bochum team converted three times.
There was no question that the Mainz win was deserved, even if the fourth-class Saarlanders almost managed to win 2-1 in the fourth minute of stoppage time. “Compliments to the Elversberger,” said 05 coach Bo Svensson. “The performance they have shown is worth all honors.” Given the oppressive superiority, his team should have decided the game earlier, he admitted. “But ask Frankfurt, Cologne and Wolfsburg, they all had problems today” - sometimes much bigger than the Rheinhessen.
From his own cup experience, he knows how such games can go. "If we take the lead, we may end it with confidence," said Svensson. “We missed that, but you can't expect to create more chances.” Burkardt, who was named “Man of the match”, was self-critical: “If I had gone out of here without a goal with all the chances that were lost, I would certainly not have been . "
Of course, it was not just because of the closing behavior that the Mainz team was threatened with extinction. Jeremiah St. Juste also made a contribution to this. The central defender, actually one of the stability factors in the back team, made two major blunders: before the 0: 1 an unnecessary loss of the ball in the build-up and in the extension a passivity, which the Elversberg double goal scorer Luca Schnellberger exploited. Such dropouts could not punish RB Leipzig harder for the league opener next Sunday - but that will certainly be a completely different game.