Three more days of play and then Bo Svensson and the other managers at 1. FSV Mainz 05 will take stock of the season.
However, the coach announced that he would not play last weekend's game.
Because of this one 0:5 defeat in Wolfsburg, he will not badmouth everything.
"The squad performed well over a longer period of time."
Under no circumstances will he take the debacle that happened from the middle to the injury time of the first half as an opportunity to think about quantitative squad changes.
"We made a conscious decision to keep the squad small," he emphasizes, citing reasons that have not lost weight.
"Because I think it's right from my coaching perspective and for Mainz 05.
We need a good, small, homogenous group.”
Unlike when he took office in January last year, Svensson does not want to have more than half a dozen professionals in the squad who play no role on the weekends.
"How could I expect them to go full throttle in training?" That's why he didn't want to leave the path he had taken.
"But we have to think about changes."
He should also change his starting formation compared to the Wolfsburg game when FC Bayern Munich comes to the Arena am Europakreisel on Saturday afternoon (3.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky).
For understandable reasons, he had initially put regular players such as left-back Aarón, defensive midfielder Dominik Kohr or the perennial favorite up front, Karim Onisiwo, on the bench – but the respective representatives had either had a bad day or raised doubts about their suitability for the league.
Therefore, it can be assumed that this trio will return to the starting XI.
The Dane also has to make changes in the back three: Niklas Tauer, the best Mainz player in the dull 0-0 win against VfB Stuttgart, saw the red card in Wolfsburg in the middle of the first half due to an emergency brake and was suspended for one game.
The events that had led to the heaviest defeat of the Rheinhessen under Svensson were still noticeable to everyone involved after the weekend.
Unlike usual, however, he hardly actively involved his players in the processing, but left them in the listening role.
He himself dropped a few clear words.
They were necessary "because in all areas of the game we were far away from the quality and mentality that must distinguish us," he refers to mistakes in both individual and team tactical behavior.
The 05ers will be aware that they can't afford to appear like that a second time, especially not when it comes to Bayern.
And the coach is confident.
In terms of an increase in his people ("I think we made good use of the days") and in terms of the overall quality of the game.
The assumption that it could be a rather trivial kick, because one team has had its tenth championship title in a row for a week and the other cannot change significantly down (fight against relegation) or up (international places), Svensson contradicts: “Bayern is characterized by the fact that they are always very ambitious.
And we have something to make up for.”
Mainz want to offer their own fans in the arena, which has been sold out for the first time since February 1, 2020 – Bayern also came that day, Corona a little later – the Mainz team want to offer something similar to the two previous duels with Munich under Svensson.
They were the better team before the break when they lost 2-1 in the first half of the season.
And in the second half of last season they even dominated for 90 minutes in their own stadium and deservedly won 2:1.