Presumably with midfielder Dominik Kohr in the starting lineup, FSV Mainz 05 will work on Saturday afternoon (3:30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky) to improve their meager away record.

The Rheinhessen go into the game at SC Freiburg with only six points won abroad;

a statistic in which only Spielvereinigung Greuther Fürth performs worse this Bundesliga season.

However, when Bo Svensson says 'we have work to do', his focus is even more on the performances than the results.

"It's time to show a good performance away from home again" - his team was last able to satisfy him in this regard in December in Munich, followed by the bloodless performance in Frankfurt, the messed-up game in Leipzig, the cup failure in Bochum and the bankruptcy in Fuerth.

The first round game against Freiburg was not a feast for the eyes either.

The people of Breisgau showed no interest in putting on a good football game, their coach Christian Streich was primarily concerned with destruction, as he later admitted.

And Mainz lacked the necessary aggressiveness in the game against the ball for a long time to counteract this destructiveness.

Two teams with a defensive focus

Will the second encounter be more respectable?

At least there is no goal festival to be expected, after all the second best defense in the league (05 with 23 goals conceded) meets the third best (24).

While the Rheinhessen have to do without central defender Jeremiah St. Juste, the fastest player in the league, for a longer period of time because the Dutchman is now having his left shoulder operated on after his right, Kohr, on loan from Eintracht Frankfurt, is about to start for the first time in almost three months .

His half-hour comeback against TSG Hoffenheim a week ago was so convincing that Svensson will hardly do without the six.

Anton Stach, who represented Kohr very well during his injury break, could move up to eighth position.

Svensson can imagine that, and Kohr also has sympathies for such a constellation: "I'm a big fan of Anton because he has huge talent," he says.

“He's big, fast and has an amazing shot.

I think he can get us going offensively.

I'm more of the defensive type."