The Mainz 05 Chronicle
Squad24 Aug 2026
A fracture rules Philipp Mwene out for 23 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Mainz 05 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market24 Aug 2026
Mainz 05 spend $20.3M to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $20.3M has been paid because Tim Lemperle is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Mainz 05 agree $6.3M for Ayo Akinola
The clubs have shaken hands with Vaduz; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Door shut on Nicolò Tresoldi
Mainz 05 asked and Club Brugge said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Alynho Haïdara in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mainz 05 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Kaishu Sano falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The town asked, and Mainz 05 paid $20.3M
Tim Lemperle was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $20.3M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The formation has left Tim Lemperle behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Mainz 05 will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Mainz 05 say no to the training-ground money
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
In brief
- Market The Nadiem Amiri talk will not go away
- Looking ahead Benedict Hollerbach faces his old club
- The dugout No hiding place for Robert Hartmann