Bo Svensson is no longer the coach of the troubled Bundesliga soccer team 1. FSV Mainz 05. The 44-year-old “jointly decided to take this step after a long conversation with sports director Christian Heidel and sports director Martin Schmidt,” the club announced in the evening.
Jan Siewert will initially take over the position – this Saturday (3.30 p.m./Sky) Mainz will host RB Leipzig.
The TV station Sport1 as well as “Bild” and “Sport Bild” had previously reported that Svensson was resigning one day after he was eliminated from the DFB Cup by second division club Hertha BSC.
Mainz have been without a win in 14 first division games
“It is very difficult for me to say goodbye, but I have the feeling that now is the time,” the coach was quoted as saying in a statement from the club. He must recognize that “no individual is above the club and that all forces must now be pooled together to master the sporting situation.”
With Svensson, the Rheinhessen had remained without a win in 14 first division games across the seasons. The last success so far came in April against FC Bayern (3:1). In the current season, Mainz have the weakest interim balance in the club’s history with just three points after nine match days and are bottom of the table.
Svensson was also part of the club’s history as a player
It must have been difficult for Svensson and the club management to part ways because the Dane has been part of the club’s history for years – as a player and coach. He took over the head coaching position at Mainz in January 2021 and impressively managed to stay in the league with the zero fives. Heidel, who was reactivated during the crisis and reappointed sports director, had hired him. Together with former Mainz coach Schmidt, who was also hired as sports director, the club on the Rhine was looking up again for a long time.
In the first season with Svensson, Mainz came in twelfth place and last season they were eighth in the table and were on course for the European Cup for a long time. In the current winless series in the Bundesliga and the most recent cup knockout. At Hertha BSC (0:3), Svensson clearly no longer saw himself in a position to initiate the turnaround. At the beginning of the week he had ruled out resigning: “I don’t think it’s appropriate to think about it now.” Between 2007 and 2014, the Dane played 109 games for Mainz 05 as a central defender.
At the general meeting, Heidel spoke of a “really intact team” in terms of character, in which “a good spirit” also prevails. And: Mainz has “the talent for such challenges and also the tools” to overcome them. After the cup defeat in Berlin, his sports director Schmidt took a different tone. The team wants to get out of the worst crisis in years with Svensson, but it is “stagnating at all ends”.
