One point gained from their trip to the Stadion An der Alten Försterei on Saturday afternoon wasn’t necessarily all that helpful for Mainz 05. The Bundesliga last-placed club need much more than draws in their quest to avoid the drop this season. The fact that Urs Fischer’s Rheinhessen ended up blowing a two-goal-lead in the final 13 minutes doesn’t count as encouraging either.
Two former Union professionals now representing Mainz still seemed in a decent enough mood after the full-time whistle. Current Mainz head coach Urs Fischer largely enjoyed his return trip to the club and stadium at which he worked for five years. Mainz striker Benedict Hollerbach – one of the Bundesliga’s biggest transfer flops thus far this year – also commemorated his first league goal for his new club.
Hollerbach required 16 Bundesliga matchdays (and 12 league appearances) to finally break his duck. The 24-year-old expressed his fair share of frustration whilst speaking in the mixed zone, yet also noted that he felt happy about at last getting the proverbial monkey of his back in Köpenick.
“A win would have been great for morale and I have larger ambitions [than just scoring one goal],” Hollerbach remarked in the mixed zone. “But, of course I’m very happy about scoring back at my old place-of-employment. It’s just easy for me here for whatever reason. I hope it’s the start of something greater.“
“When one has something to loose, sometimes one gets weak at the knees,” Fischer initially noted in his post match interview with Sky Germany. “We had to reward ourselves for our performance and we absolutely needed to win today.“
“Now that I’ve returned as an opponent, I know which set of stairs I’m supposed to use,” Fischer answered when asked what it felt like to return. “And I had no problem finding the [guest] locker room.
“It was a great day,” Fischer continued. “I saw a lot of people that I worked together with for a long time and enjoyed a lot of success with. It was nice reunion, but my focus was mostly on the game today.“
