After leading Valencia CF to Champions League and LaLiga glory with a fully homegrown team over the last two seasons, Roberto Lazaró decided it was time for a change. In the summer of 2032, he stood down as Valencia manager and went in search of a club that was struggling and where he could establish another Wonderkid Factory.
Upon resigning, there were vacancies at AC Milan, Porto, Torino, Salernitana, Stoke and Hamburg. But there was one club that Lazaró had identified as being perfect for his next challenge, and they were also the first to offer an interview and make an approach. And just two weeks after standing down from his role at Nuevo Mestalla, Lazaró was headed for Germany.
Why 1. FSV Mainz 05?
1. FSV Mainz 05 began this save in Bundesliga, finishing in 6th place in season 2. However, they got relegated in 2031 and failed to get promoted last season, finishing down in 6th place in 2. Bundesliga.
Mainz’s club culture perfectly suits Lazaró’s approach – namely developing players using the club’s youth system and signing players under the age of 23. It also has a strong infrastructure with 18 training facilities, 17 youth recruitment and junior coaching and 16 youth facilities that Lazaró could work with and bolster to develop a homegrown team. There was some money to work with, as Mainz had £11m in the bank, a £6m transfer budget and were spending £830k of their £900k wage budget.
Like in Valencia, the aim is to develop a team that’s fully homegrown at Mainz. However, there are no Ibero-American rules in Germany and it takes a ludicrous 2,920 days (8 years) for players to gain German nationality. So with that in mind, we’re going to impose a rule that new signings must arrive before their 19th birthday, enabling them to be homegrown by the age of 21.
Massive Mainz Clearout
Lazaró’s first task was to move on as many players as possible who weren’t good enough, were too old, weren’t homegrown and/or were still unhappy about being relegated over 12 months ago! He moved on 21 players for a profit of £58.4m, including 31-year-old midfielder Tom Krauss to Saudi for £12.75m, underperforming centre back Ivan Cvetko for £12.5m to Everton, 29-year-old defender Facundo González to Strasbourg for £9.5m. And that freed up £310k from the wage budget.
The good news was that Mainz had established homegrown players in strikers Nelson Weiper, who’s been worryingly goalshy in this save, and Jonathan Burkardt, German international winger Tomasz Pietrzyk, midfielder Brajan Gruda and goalkeeper Roland Anton. There were also a few decent prospects coming through like midfielder Szymon Wyganowski, winger Krzysztof Feliks, centre back Volker Breidenbach and full backs Mirko Eltink and Mert Kucukyazici. And there were a few youngsters to keep an eye on, in winger Angelo Tursi, striker Tim Koch and midfielder Marcel Henke.
Lazaró sent scouts out around the world and wasted no time tapping into the South American market. First in was 6ft 5in defender De Nilson Barbosa from Envigado, followed by deadline day deals for midfielder Leanderson Moutinho for £4m from Santos, striker Hernán Acosta, a striker Lazaró intended to retrain as a midfielder, for £5m from Lanús and holding midfielder Luis Gutiérrez for £5m from River.
With massive transfer business done, Lazaró adopted a tweaked version of the 4-5-1 he used in his early days at Valencia. Barbosa, Acosta and Moutinho go straight into the team and Lazaró was relying on the experienced front two of Weiper and Pietrzyk to fire them to success.
Getting Started In Germany
The Mainz board expected promotion as champions and, even with the massive overhaul, the bookies fancied them to finish 2nd with title odds of 11/8. Relegated Heidenheim are 11/8 favourites along with Augsburg (15/8), Fortuna Dusseldorf (7/2), Darmstadt (5/1) and Schalke (12/1).
Lazaró’s time in Germany began at home to relegation favourites Erzgebirge Aue, and his first starting 11 contained 7 players homegrown at the club with 7 more on the bench. Mainz started brightly as Weiper tapped in Justin Diehl’s spilled shot after 12 minutes. Burkardt laid on another for Weiper and they cruised to a 2-0 win that should have been far more comfortable. That was followed by a trip to favourites Heidenheim, who edged a 1-0 victory, before Pietrzyk nicked a 1-1 at Nurnberg and 0-0s at home to Sandhausen and at Kaiserslautern.
That left Mainz in midtable with just 1 win from Lazaró’s first 5 games, and prompted knobhead Jurgen Klopp to question the new manager. After 5 matches!
Lazaró printed Klopp’s words and stuck them on the changing room wall, which got the desired response. Weiper’s brace downed Augsburg 2-0, Pietrzyk followed suit in a 3-2 win at Karslruhe, and Weiper bagged a new club record 4 in the first half and Acosta got a debut assist as they thrashed Paderborn 5-1. That saw Weiper the goal tally he managed in the last 2 seasons (9) after just 8 games under Lazaró. And he hit double figures for just the second time in his career as Acosta scored his first senior goal on his 19th birthday in a 4-1 win at Elversberg that took Mainz top for the first time.
Weier couldn’t stop scoring as he bagged back-to-back braces against Magdeburg and Kiel before a run of 7 successive wins ended with a 4-2 loss at Darmstadt. They also dropped points against Dusseldorf but a strong November took them top with a 1-point lead over Kaiserslautern and Sandhausen going into the winter break. And suddenly turncoat Klopp had changed his tune…
Targeting Required Promotion
Lazaró’s efforts to remain on track for promotion convinced the Mainz board to grant his requests for improved junior coaching and youth recruitment in January 2033, which boosted both to a perfect 20. However, Lazaró reluctantly allowed Weiper to go to Saudi for £25m, as well as selling wantaway Pietrzyk and Diehl to Wolfsburg and Sassuolo for £17.5m and £10m and centre back Justin Janitzek to Koln for £5.75m and Burkardt to Saudi for £2.5m, which took Lazaró’s sales to £119m in 6 months.
That required more additions, so Lazaró returned to South America to draft in midfielder Oscar Pérez for £3m from Racing Club, centre back José Bertazzi for £2.7m from Santos and, perhaps most excitingly, 6ft 4in winger Guilherme Henrique for up to £12.5m from Atlético Mineiro on deadline day.
Weiper’s departure saw Acosta move up front and he scored as Mainz kicked off 2033 with a 3-3 thriller at home to Heidenheim. Breidenbach headed his first senior goal and Mainz’s youngest-ever goalscorer, aged 17 years 360 days, in a 2-1 win at bottom-side Erzgebirge. That teed up a huge game away to 2nd place Sandhausen and they put in a limp performance to lose 1-0 to a late wonderstrike.
Henrique scored 30 minutes into his debut before Feliks’ late goal nicked a 3-2 win at home to Nurnberg. Acosta and Wyganowski took them back to the top of the table with a 2-0 win over 3rd-place Kaiserslautern before Acosta’s calm finish secured the only goal at Augsburg. Pérez’s first senior goal opened the scoring in a 2-1 win at home to Karlsruhe, which began a strong run that took Mainz 2 points clear of Sandhausen and 6 clear of Schalke going into the final 4 games.
Game 1 – Dusseldorf (11th, away): Mainz’s title push began wotjh a disappointing performance and a 2-1 defeat. Two days later, their two rivals went head-to-head and drew 1-1, leaving Mainz 1 point clear.#
Game 2 – Schalke (3rd, home): A win at home to Schalke would secure promotion, but they played out a tepid first half and an even worse second half to draw 0-0. The next day, Sandhausen beat Rostock 3-1 to go top.
Game 3 – Rostock (15th, away): Barbosa broke his foot at Schalke and Anton tweaked his ankle ligaments. They got battered in the early stages but Gutiérrez poked them into an undeserved lead and Henrique slammed home from a corner. And they held on to win 2-1 and seal promotion. Even better, Sandhausen lost 3-2 at relegation-battling Wehen Wiesbaden to keep Mainz 2 points clear.
Game 4 – Wehen Wiesbaden (17th, home): That meant a win at home to Wiesbaden, who needed to win to survive, would win the league on the final day. Mainz started well, only for the ref to award a nonsense penalty while Sandhausen raced into a 3-0 lead over Erzgebirge. Pérez eventually got them level and, straight from the kick off, Henrique headed them in front. Acosta quickly doubled the lead after the break and Henrique swept in his second… only for the defence to capitulate and ludicrously draw 4-4. But luckily, sandhausen let one in to, despite the lack of a trophy ceremony, hand Mainz the title. Mainz won 2. Bundesliga and the club’s first major trophy!
Mainz won 2. Bundesliga by 1 goal after finishing level with Sandhausen on 72 points, with 21 wins, 8 draws and 4 defeats, scoring 68 and conceding 34. Sandhausen, who were in the 4th-tier Oberliga as recently as 2007, joined them in promotion to Bundesliga for the first time in club history, but Schalke lost the promotion playoff to Hamburg and Rostock lost the relegtation playoff to Regensburg.
A Strong Start In Mainz
Lazaró enjoyed a solid first season in Germany, led largely by his new South American contingent, who’ll become homegrown in a couple of years. Acosta led the way with 11 goals followed by Henrique (7) and Gutiérrez, Pérez and Barbosa (3), but Gruda impressed with 17 assists followed by Gutiérrez (7), Eltink (4) and Henrique and Acosta (3). Although Weiper was still well clear with 21 goals before his move.
The positivity at Mainz was boosted by a really solid intake led by 5-star potential centre back Rafael Musel and winger Maciej Wasilewski and 4.5-star attackers Savas Afsar and Louay Ben Yahia, centre back Jakub Jablonski and left back Chris Voss. It also included five 4-star players and a 3.5-star.
Lazaró had plenty of work to do in the summer to help Mainz survive in Bundesliga, but he was confident his core of youngsters could make the step up. However, he really needed to find a good goalkeeper and left back.
Could Mainz survive in their first season back in Bundesliga? Join us next Friday to find out!
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