The small city of Mainz, on the outskirts of Frankfurt in western Germany, wasn’t accustomed to throwing huge parties. But you wouldn’t have known it as seemingly the entirety of its 220,000 population took to the streets to celebrate their heroes lifting 1. FSV Mainz’s maiden Bundesliga title in 2038. The city’s streets flowed with Pilsner and the parties went on for what felt like weeks.
The club’s fans honoured Spanish manager Roberto Lazaró as an iconic figure and installed Argentinian attackers Santiago Quiroga and Damián Jorge and Brazilian left back Laerte as favoured personnel. Lazaró spent several nights sinking jars of Pilsner with his adoring fans, who he loved equally, but soon turned his attention to getting some sleep… then planning for a Bundesliga title defence. However, those thoughts were rudely interrupted by a phone call from Italy as perennial title battlers Napoli had lost manager Dejan Stankovic to Man UFC and made their Lazaró their top priority.
Lazaró thought it over long and hard, especially as they were offering a 50% wage increase, but eventually agreed to stay at Mainz under the agreement that his board further enhanced the club’s youth facilities. Also keeping him at Mainz was exciting off-field news as the club completed its relocation to the newly built Jürgen Klopp Park, which holds 45,131 people – and thanks to Canva’s AI Image Generator for the image.
With the Napoli distraction out of the way, Lazaró’s first actions were to hand new five-year deals to Jorge and his favourite player, wonderkid attacking midfielder Lucas Bottega, who won the Best Young Player with Brazil at World Cup 2038 over the summer. Lazaró had huge amounts of money available, going into 2038/39 with £346m in the bank, a £339m transfer budget and a £1.7m wage budget, of which he was only spending £961k. But he saw no need to make signings, instead choosing to put faith in the team that won the title and promoting hardworking left back Jorge Carrilho and midfielder Afonso Souza. Furthermore, all but four of the first-team squad are homegrown at the club, with the major exceptions being Bottega and right back Lasse Lykkeberg, who’ll both become homegrown next season.
Lazaró of course saw no reason to change a winning tactic, sticking with the South American attacking quartet with Bottega, Hernán Acosta and Santiago Quiroga supporting last season’s top scorer Jorge.
Mainz’s First Bundesliga Title Defence
The bookies certainly didn’t expect Mainz to defend their maiden Bundesliga title, predicting them to finish 6th with odds of 33/1 alongside Wolfsburg. Bayern are 9/4 favourites ahead of Leverkusen (11/4), and Dortmund and Leipzig (4/1). Mainz also began the season with their first DFL-Supercup appearance and drew 1-1 with Stuttgart but lost on penalties.
The title defence got off to a solid start as Bottega, Hernán Acosta and midfielder Angelo Tursi secured a comfortable 3-0 win at Greuter Furth and Nemanja Ratkovic and Bottega earned a 2-2 with Dortmund, which was a fitting first game at Jürgen Klopp Park. The second saw Bayern come to town and Quiroga earned a 1-1 in a poor game, but the first win at the new stadium was a 6-1 demolition of Nurnberg with Jorge and Ratkovic both bagging braces. The first few months of the season were littered with injuries, including star man Bottega annoyingly picking up torn knee ligaments on international duty. His teammates performed well without him, then put in an outstanding performance to win 3-1 at early leaders Leipzig thanks to Tursi, adopting a deeper midfield role, laying on late goals for midfielder Salvador Martínez and Acosta.
Mainz’s First Taste of the Champions League
Mainz’s first venture into Europe’s elite served up some tasty fixtures, including taking on Napoli and a trip to Lazaró’s old foes Barcelona. But, in the most scripted fixture ever, the headline news was Lazaró facing a first return to Nuevo Mestalla to play his former club Valencia.
They opened up with some must-win games and delivered, edging an exciting 3-2 at Fenerbahce then beating Molde 3-1 at home. Next up was Lazaró’s emotional return to Valencia, who’d seen plenty of turnover, including signing a 35-year-old Jamal Musiala, but did still have the likes of goalkeeper Marcio Antonio, attacker Alberto Kilamba, centre back Joao Paulo and left back David Fernandez Vinitzky. The hosts injured two Mainz players, then had two players score their first goals of the season in a tight game decided by injury-time corners.
A Quiroga brace inspired a 2-1 win over Atalanta before Acosta’s late strike nicked a draw with Napoli, which set a new gate receipts record of £1.4m. They wrapped up with Jorge and captain José Bertazzi earning a 2-0 win at home to Ajax before a rotated team surrendered 5-0 at Barca, which wrapped up a solid 11th place finish.
A potentially tricky playoff round tie followed against Porto and a rotated side held on for an impressive 1-0 loss in Portugal. But they cruised through as Ratkovic and Jorge doubles led a 5-0 home thumping. Their reward was facing Newcastle, currently 2nd in the Premier League, in the last 16 and another inspired home performance saw the attacking midfield trio of Jorge, Ratkovic and Quiroga earn a 3-0 win, while Newcastle only had three shots. The English side made a strong comeback, but Jorge equalised on 77 minutes and, despite two late goals, Mainz snuck through 4-3 on aggregate.
Mainz got the “least painful” quarter final tie against Inter and were at home first again. They led after 24 minutes as Bottega’s delicious pass sent Quiroga through for an easy finish, which proved enough to edge a pretty cagey game. Mainz took a hammering in the first half of the second leg and Inter took advantage, also after 24 minutes. Lazaró tweaked a few things at the break, including dropping into a mid block, the players responded and drew level through Acosta’s smart finish. From then on in, Mainz defended magnificently and stunted Inter’s attack to earn a narrow 2-1 aggregative victory and reach the Champions League semi finals!
The difficulty level etched up a notch as Mainz took on the might of Lazaró’s old foes Real Madrid in the semis. It looked like being a step too far in the home leg as Real had an early goal disallowed and went ahead just before the break, but Mainz battled and held on to only lose 1-0. Real obviously scored their first shot at home and Mainz did well to stifle them – until the ref did his bit to decide the game by dishing out a red card for Jorge and giving Real a penalty that they missed. Real went on to lose the Final 2-1 to Tottenham, who won the tournament for the first time.
Exciting Bundesliga Title Race
Heading into 2039, Mainz held a narrow lead in what promised to be a close title race, as 7 points separated the top six. They started the new year with a dreadful performance and a 4-0 loss at Dortmund to drop to 3rd, which saw the top 5 separated by 3 points. They bounced back by crushing Greuther Furth led by Carrilho’s first two senior goals and Quiroga’s assist hat trick. Bottega returned to action with a goal as Mainz downed Koln 4-1, only to get harshly demolished 4-0 at Bayern – against whom Mainz have now won 1 out of 12 meetings, losing by an aggregate of 29-10 in Lazaró’s time at the club!
Mainz again proved their resilience, backing up the Bayern battering with 1-0 wins over Bochum and Nurnberg. The top of the table really closed up, and Mainz lost ground as players were exhausted from yet another international break, and rotation led to a 3-2 defeat at Hoffenheim. That set up a huge game at home to Leipzig in early April in between the two Inter games. Leipzig obviously scored their first and second shots either side of Jorge’s strike. Lazaró made a tweak at the break, dropping Acosta back into midfield and it worked as, ridiculously, he scored his first goal in 21 games. Mainz seized control as Quiroga had a goal disallowed then scored in the next four minutes, and Ratkovic came off the bench to seal the deal and earn a massive three points.
That huge result lifted Mainz back to the top of Bundesliga, leading Dortmund by 1 point and Leipzig by 2 points. Bayern were 2 points back from Leipzig, and Stuttgart were a further 2 behind them, so the top five remained split by just 6 points going into the final five games. However, Mainz probably had the trickiest run-in with four games against teams in the top nine and were the only team still in Europe.
Game 1 – Wolfsburg (9th, away): Mainz began the run-in with Lazaró having to rotate a tired squad but a superb defensive effort and Ratkovic’s penalty edged a 1-0 in a poor game at Wolfsburg. There was better news elsewhere as Dortmund lost 1-0 at home to Bochum, Leipzig drew 1-1 at Hoffenheim and Stutgart lost 2-0 at home to Hamburg, but Bayern won 3-1 at Koln. That moved Mainz 4 points clear of Dortmund, Bayern and Leipzig with four games remaining.
Game 2 – Stuttgart (5th, home): The trickiest game on paper also proved to be an edgy affair as the two sides offered nothing in the first half. Stuttgart didn’t even try to attack, had 0 shots and paid the price as Tursi came off the bench to nick a deserved 84th-minute winner. Dortmund lost 1-0 again at Nurnberg and Leizpig lost 1-0 at home to Wolfsburg, but Bayern won 2-0 at home to Hoffenheim to keep Mainz 4 points clear.
Game 3 – Dynamo Dresden (14th, away): Lazaró had to rotate for a trip to Dresden and this time they fell short, suffering a 1-0 defeat. Dortmund lost again 3-2 at home to Schalke but Bayern and Leipzig took advantage by beating Bochum and Stuttgart 2-0. That saw Mainz leading Bayern by 1 point and Leipzig by 4 points with two games remaining.
Game 4 – Hertha (7th, away): The visitors again showed zero attacking intent and were punished in first-half injury time as Martínez’s delicious lofted pass was spectacularly volleyed home by Bottega, who’d been struggling since his injury. Mainz dominated and doubled the lead as Quiroga passed inside for Martínez to curl into the top corner. Hertha didn’t even have a shot and Mainz claimed a crucial win. The next day, Bayern only drew 2-2 at bottom-side Nurnberg, to send Mainz into the final day with a 3-point lead and a 5 better goal difference.
Game 5 – Gladbach (8th, away): That meant Mainz only needed a point to guarantee the title on Lazaró’s 55th birthday, and would defend their Bundesliga crown unless Bayern won at home to Schalke with a 5-goal swing. Mainz made a bright start as Bottega shot just wide then arrowed a towering header into the top corner, while Bayern also took an early lead. The out-of-form Jorge again missed chances but Bottega proved the difference maker as his brilliant run and shot forced an own goal before Jorge played him through for a third. Mainz cruised to a victory that sealed consecutive Bundesliga titles and a trophy presentation for which only half their team could be bothered to show up!
Mainz defended their title by 3 points from Bayern, finishing with 77 points after 24 wins, 5 draws and 5 defeats, scoring 71 and conceding 28. And a shoutout has to go to Leipzig for conceding just 20. Quiroga was the best player in Bundesliga with a 7.65 average rating, with Ratkovic in 3rd on 7.47, and got the second-most assists with 13. While Santino Cerantola topped the clean sheets chart with 16 in just 25 games. As a result, Quiroga became the first Mainz player to win Spieler der Saison and was one of 6 Mainz players in Elf des Jahres (along with Cerantola, Adler, Bertazzi, Gutiérrez and Martínez) and Lazaró defended the Fussball-Trainer des Jahres
Mainz Homegrown Players Update
Lazaró was delighted with his team’s efforts this season, performing superbly to retain their maiden Bundesliga title in addition to a strong first Champions League campaign. Quiroga, who’s still only 23, was undeniably the star of the season with 18 goals and 20 assists and a 7.61 average rating in 44 games. Jorge led the way with 19 goals in 37 games, Ratkovic impressed with 17 goals and 7 assists in 43 games, Bottega got 10 goals and 5 assists in an injury-hit campaign, Acosta scored 10 with 7 assists and Tursi scored 8 goals with 8 assists.
Mainz had 19 players homegrown at the club combine for 365 league appearances with 45 goals and 203 cup games with 23 goals. Click the chart below to see the stats in full:
The U19s struggled a little to an 8th place league finish and exited the UEFA Youth League in the league phase with just one win. But the best performers were midfielders Richard Schweizer and Fabian Ammesdorfer, who got 13 goals and 10 assists respectively, and striker Andreas Schwehm, who scored 13 goals. Click the chart below to see all their stats:
Bottega ensured Mainz players won back-to-back European Golden Boy awards. And Lazaró was excited by the prospect of a youth intake preview that promised 5 As. However, the actual result was three players with 4.5-star potential led by decent defensive midfielder Marcel Kraus.
These were exciting times for Mainz fans, who’d seen Lazaró take their club from 2. Bundesliga struggles to the best team in Germany and competing with Europe’s elite. Lazaró wanted another crack at the Champions League, especially with his favourite Bottega becoming homegrown at the club over the summer.
Could Mainz make it three in a row and go a step further in the Champions League? Join us on Friday to find out!
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