After a 0: 0 to quickly forget, Christian Streich wanted to get rid of something. Not for the game, but for your own cause. The coach of SC Freiburg, who is always allergic to someone cheering his team up for the European Cup candidate, had spoken like a fan himself before the trip to 1. FSV Mainz 05. About the opponent who, under his colleague Bo Svensson, is “extremely aggressive” and is willing “to torment himself in every game”. On Thursday, Streich attested to this knocked-down team that scored 32 points under Svensson in the previous second half of the season and after only five matchdays they were in the top flight of the Bundesliga, that it "will play for the European Cup this time" .
It may be that he continues to trust the Mainz team to do everything, despite the long stretches of the rather unprepossessing duel between the two teams, which are currently quite high in the table, only: In retrospect, he felt that he had talked about the opponent's European perspectives before the fifth match day as misplaced, after all, Mainz could use everything right now, but not stuff from another coach who hasn't thought enough and allowed himself to be carried away with such nonsense, "said Streich. "I've been very annoyed in the last two days," said the football teacher, who is usually never at a loss for the right words, about an extrapolation that no Mainz resident had resented him. Streich asked his colleague Bo Svensson's forgiveness anyway, and he gladly accepted the apology."He just wanted to praise us for the great playing time last time, that was respect on his part."
A pretty "sluggish" first half
Svensson was less lenient about his team's game, the first Mainz draw this season after three wins and one defeat.
The performance was "unsatisfactory".
The coach, who lacked the usual dynamism of his team, found the first half in particular to be rather "sluggish".
Then there was a big chance with Burkardt's shot, which goalkeeper Flekken parried (54th minute).
But that was it in this encounter, in which two formations, used to fighting for every inch, got entangled.
Since the Mainz goalkeeper Zentner Grifos shot (90th + 3) famously parried at the very end, the result fit in with this combative, playful but lackluster confrontation between two formations, which constantly score points for their intransigence.
In Mainz, Streich finally presented himself as a real with an eye for what is feasible. "I'm satisfied because we showed a certain form of stability," said Streich, summarizing the unadorned duel from his point of view. The spirit that Freiburgers lacked in Mainz should be visible again next Sunday when the sports club says goodbye to its stadium on the Dreisam in a duel with FC Augsburg, before moving to its new, larger and more modern home moves to the east of the city.