The Mainz 05 Chronicle
Match17 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Mainz 05 do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match17 Oct 2026
4 matches without a win for Mainz 05
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Mainz 05 are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Karim Konaté 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
4 matches without a goal for Mainz 05
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Mainz 05
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kaishu Sano was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Late improvement for Benjamin Leneis
At 27 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Mainz 05 are still strangers to each other
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Karim Konaté dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Jorge Ortega gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
In brief
- Player ratings Nobody could get near Paul Nebel
- The dugout Florian Klein on the point
- Player ratings Nothing got past Nadiem Amiri