Sunday April 11, 2021
Off for Cologne trainer Gisdol
Mainz lands last-minute victory in the cellar thriller
In the relegation battle, Mainz 05 is developing more and more into a team for the big points. In the duel with Cologne, who are also threatened with relegation, the Rheinhessen strike in stoppage time and continue their furious second half of the season.
Markus Gisdol stood motionless in front of his bench and then disappeared into the catacombs after clapping his players. The 51-year-old said goodbye after the 2: 3 (1: 1) bankruptcy of 1. FC Köln in the relegation duel with FSV Mainz 05, apparently also as the coach of the Rhinelander. The separation from the 51-year-old was a done deal, reported Sport1 and the “Express” less than two hours after the now eighth Bundesliga game without a win in the evening. There was initially no confirmation of the table penultimate.
At Sky Gisdol had previously stated: “I don’t expect anything, I try to console my boys. It’s about 1. FC Köln and my team.” The coach, who has been working in Cologne since November 2019, admitted that he was “of course disappointed, that’s clear after such a game where you felt you could have scored the three points”.
After the final whistle, captain Jonas Hector crouched against a board for minutes and explained his reaction as follows: “Of course, the game makes you angry because we lost the game. We gave up the goals too easily.” However, the former national player did not want to know anything about a relegation. With 23 points, the Cologne team dropped to 17th place behind Arminia Bielefeld and Hertha BSC (both 26th).
For Mainz, who climbed to 14th place with 28 points, Jean-Paul Boetius (11th), Karim Onisiwo (65th) and Leandro Barreiro (90th + 2) scored their first victory in the RheinEnergieStadion. “A great win,” said the happy Barreiro. “A wild game,” said coach Bo Svensson, who disliked the performance in the first half. Ondrej Duda (43./ penalty) and Ellyes Skhiri (61.) scored the FC goals. Gisdol was able to fall back on two top performers after long injury breaks. Florian Kainz was in the starting line-up for the first time this season after a knee operation, and center forward Sebastian Andersson, who had to take a break due to knee problems, returned to the starting line-up after four months.
But the guests, who experience an upswing with their coach Svensson, showed the more mature play system. The Mainz team, who had recently been undefeated four times in a row, came early to 1-0 through a surprising and placed right-footed shot by Boetius.
The Cologne team coped well with the deficit, had two good chances to score through Andersson (19/20) and put the Rheinhessen under more pressure with great effort, but without creating great chances afterwards. Only a hand penalty given after video evidence, which Duda was able to convert, led to an equalization. FC goalkeeper Timo Horn had previously prevented the Mainz team from 2-0 after a shot by Moussa Niakhaté.
In the game, which was generally quite even and was interrupted by many injury breaks, Marius Wolf had the great opportunity to score the opening goal for FC, who was better in the second half of the game, but his header only landed on the aluminum frame via goalkeeper Robin Zentner (58th).
Three minutes later, Skhiri did better. His header hit after preliminary work by Jonas Hector made it 2-1 for the hosts, but Onisiwo equalized immediately. Barreiro even let the Mainz team cheer for the eminently important victory in stoppage time – that probably cost Gisdol the job.
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