Sandro Schwarz’s team pulled off one of the shocks of the weekend – and they were inspired by highlights of Liverpool

“Und das Reste ist Party,” as ZDF’s Das Aktuelle Sportstudio put it. The best nights out are often spontaneous ones and so it proved for Mainz. The 05ers had looked like the perfect opponents for Borussia Dortmund, who sought to seal Champions League qualification at the end of an often-fraught season against a side they had beaten on each of their previous six visits to Signal Iduna Park.

Instead, Sandro Schwarz’s team pulled off one of the shocks of the weekend, and perhaps even of the season. After their 2-1 win on Saturday, a side among the pre-season favourites for the drop are safe with a game to spare and celebrated with their 3,000 travelling fans like they had reached the Champions League themselves.

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“What we achieved today was just incredible,” beamed 20-year-old striker Ridle Baku after he had scored the opener. The achievement of Baku himself was equally so. The goal was his second in two games for the senior team, having been dragged off the bus on the way to a reserve fixture at Freiburg last week to make an impromptu debut in the win over Leipzig. It was a slick, stylish team goal, representative of a controlled, enterprising performance. This was no smash-and-grab, but the culmination of an extraordinary week for Mainz, who had looked as vulnerable as any other team at the bottom until beating the teams that finished second and third last season in six days.

Hearing Schwarz talk about the “unbelievable feeling” of sealing safety added to that sense his team are almost coasting above reality. He made a nod to some sort of semi-divine intervention too, talking about the hand of a former Mainz head coach in the great escape. Mainz-born Schwarz is firmly drawn from the club’s coaching lineage of recent years, having played with Jürgen Klopp in his years at the club before eventually following in his footsteps.

Eleven years his junior, Schwarz remains good friends with Liverpool’s manager, and talked in the lead-up to the Dortmund game about how the Reds’ Champions League exploits had inspired him when preparing for the battle for survival. “I was so excited by the game and by Liverpool’s attacking,” he told his pre-match press conference last week of watching the semi-final first leg dismantling of Roma, “that I called my video analyst straight away and got him to cut and paste all of them together.”

Some of that spirit and momentum was certainly present in Mainz’s play, particularly after a week in which they lost experienced goalkeeper René Adler to a knee operation (in the end, Adler’s replacement Florian Müller enjoyed a much quieter afternoon than he might have expected). The modest Schwarz, though, underplays his own role by shifting the focus to Klopp’s inspiration. Sporting director Rouven Schröder and Schwarz’s players have been unequivocal in their support of him, because his plan for the season’s final stages was so convincing. “We owed the coach,” confessed captain Stefan Bell, “because we’ve left him hanging too often.”

With the team’s Bundesliga future suspended by a thread, Schwarz found the way to galvanise his troops. After the last international break, he declared a “final round” of the remaining seven games, demanding total adherence to a plan of strict discipline, and coaching his players on a one-to-one basis as well. In the games since, Mainz have won three, drawn two and lost just one. They are fourth in the form table over that period.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dortmund fans pay tribute to Roman Weidenfeller, their legendary goalkeeper, who is leaving the club. Photograph: Pixathlon/Rex Shutterstock

This win was the jewel in the crown. For all their well-discussed shortcomings, Dortmund hadn’t lost at home in the Bundesliga since Peter Stöger’s arrival, and went into Saturday’s match in fine form, needing just a (widely expected) victory to seal their return to the Champions League. Instead, Mainz cut a dash around them early on and saw the game out coolly.

From Dortmund’s perspective, it was “not good enough,” in Stöger’s words. Matthias Sammer, on his first return to Signal Iduna Park as a spectator since accepting an advisory role, wore a concerned look. It certainly put a dampener on Roman Weidenfeller’s final home game as a player. Having played 452 matches for the club Weidenfeller was denied No 453 as Stöger, chasing an equaliser, was forced to break his promise to get the veteran goalkeeper on for a final curtain call. It was, as Kicker wrote: “The mirror image of a season of contradictions and inadequacies.” Mainz, as they revelled in the moment at full-time and then again later with the delirious host of fans waiting for them at the Opel Arena when their bus arrived back in the evening, cared little.

When Thomas Tuchel, another former Mainz coach, joined Dortmund in 2015, the 05ers’ Twitter account proclaimed the club as BVB’s “Trainerschmiede” (coach factory), together with mocked-up pictures of then-manager Martin Schmidt and Schwarz, then with the under-23s, in Dortmund tracksuits as BVB head coaches of 2020 and 2025. Schwarz, at least, hasn’t had to wait nearly that long to make his dent in the Westfalen dugout.

Quick guide Bundesliga results Show Hide Borussia Dortmund 1-2 Mainz, Cologne 1-3 Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt 3-0 Hamburg, Augbsburg 1-2 Schalke, Hannover 3-1 Hertha Berlin, Mönchengladbach 3-1 Freiburg, Leipzig 4-1 Wolfsburg, Stuttgart 2-0 Hoffenheim, Werder Bremen 0-0 Bayer Leverkusen,

Talking points

• There was less happiness at Schmidt’s former club, Wolfsburg, who go into next week’s final day still in real danger after a 4-1 hiding at Leipzig, from whom the excellent Ademola Lookman scored twice. The travelling fans vented their anger at Bruno Labbadia and his players, and with another 300 waiting for the team at the Volkswagen Arena to give the squad a piece of their collective mind, the bus home was diverted away from the ground on police advice. Die Wölfe could still escape the playoff if they beat relegated Köln and Freiburg lose at home to Augsburg, but if they lose and Hamburg beat Mönchengladbach, they would go down automatically.

• Nevertheless, Hamburg are staring down the barrel of a first-ever relegation from the Bundesliga after going down 3-0 at Eintracht Frankfurt. They thought they had taken a first-half lead through Tatsuyo Ito only for VAR to spot a tight offside – Marius Wolf scored shortly after to start the slide.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hamburg’s Kyriakos Papadopoulos heads at goal. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

• It was a good afternoon, though, for Niko Kovac in his final home match before joining Bayern Munich. ”We’ve taken the club to another level,” said the coach as they kept their European qualification hopes alive. “Not me – all of us.”



• Bayern’s current coach, Jupp Heynckes, saw his side come back from a goal down to win at Köln but wasn’t happy with goalscorer Robert Lewandowski, who left the field without shaking his coach’s hand on his substitution. “It’s me that’s in charge,” said Heynckes, “and nobody else.”

• With Schalke clinching second place by winning at Augsburg, there are still four teams in with a shout of the other two Champions League places – Dortmund, Hoffenheim, Leverkusen and Leipzig. Hoffenheim host Dortmund – the latter should be OK barring a thrashing given their superior goal difference to Leverkusen – needing a win after their loss to Stuttgart, who are in with a shout of Europe after their sensational 2018.