Marked for Eric Martel
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market1 Mar 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Mainz 05, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market1 Mar 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Mainz 05 heard it as anything else.
Market1 Mar 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Phillip Tietz wants continental football; whether Mainz 05 can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Mainz 05
Vinícius Júnior and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Mainz 05 know it.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tim Lemperle, and the manager let it.
Match27 Feb 2027
0‑1 to Heidenheim, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“71 caps was 71 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 34 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from Mainz 05.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
The clubs have shaken hands with Lommel; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Market18 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Mainz 05 did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad18 Jan 2027
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market18 Jan 2027
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Anthony Caci reports back to Mainz 05 with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Vinícius Júnior was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market18 Jan 2027
Mainz 05 may not be able to give Eric Martel what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eric Martel wants continental football; whether Mainz 05 can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match19 Dec 2026
Borussia Mönchengladbach will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Mainz 05 were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.21, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market21 Dec 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Mainz 05, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match19 Dec 2026
Still nobody has beaten Mainz 05
The unbeaten run reaches 10. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad21 Dec 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Mainz 05 know it.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Matthias Wagner could afford to be generous.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Tim Lemperle knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tim Lemperle trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad21 Dec 2026
One booking too many, and Dominik Kohr sits out. Mainz 05 lose him for the sort of avoidable reason that makes a manager's week longer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match12 Dec 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 9 matches without defeat is a foundation Mainz 05 did not have in the autumn.
Market14 Dec 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Mainz 05 heard it as anything else.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Benedict Hollerbach was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Đorđe Jovanović
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Lee Jae-Sung has had enough of the noise
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
Match12 Dec 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Bayern Munich leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Matthias Wagner was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Mainz 05 dressing room was either.
In brief
-
Market
The Nadiem Amiri talk will not go away
-
The dugout
Silas has become a man the manager trusts
-
Player ratings
Nobody could get near Paul Nebel
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Mainz 05, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Mainz 05 heard it as anything else.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Mainz 05
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nadiem Amiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. SuperSport United have kept their man, and Mainz 05 go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match12 Sep 2026
0‑2 to Hamburger SV, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Mainz 05
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Friedrich Lange commits to Mainz 05 for another 3 years.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Matthias Wagner to a room that had heard them before.