Familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt but it certainly diminishes the capacity to recognise the extraordinary work that’s needed to just keep the status quo going. Mainz 05 are a very good case in point. The relatively small and historically unremarkable club from Rhineland-Palatinate are only negotiating their eighth campaign ever in the top flight. Their wage bill, approximately €20m in 2013/14, is miniscule and yet, they’ve continually staved off relegation with relative ease and have become part of the Bundesliga furniture.

Mainz are safely ensconced in mid-table again, only three points behind the Europa League places and with plenty of bigger names struggling behind them. The season can already be classed as another remarkable achievement for manager Thomas Tuchel and his squad. But it takes a closer look at a different number to show just how sensational Mainz have been relative to their limited resources. Since Tuchel took over from Jürgen Klopp at the beginning of 2009/10, Impire Stats reveal that only Bayern, Dortmund, Leverkusen and Schalke have amassed more points than the self-declared “carnival club”. Think about that for a moment.

It would be amiss not to mention the excellent work of general manager Christian Heidel and that of a scouting team who keep on finding decent players for very little money. Chelsea winger André Schürrle who was signed as a 16-year-old from Ludwigshafener SC is probably the best example, but there are plenty of others, like Columbian international Elkin Soto or Germany forward Nicolai Müller. But the biggest credit must surely go to Tuchel, Germany’s hottest prospect in coaching at the moment.

“ It feels only like a matter of time before he’ll move on to a big job that compliments his undoubted talent.

The 40-year-old is one of those managers who had to start very early after a knee injury stopped him from playing at third division Ulm at the age of 24. He studied economics, then worked as Stuttgart’s U19 coach before taking on the role as youth-team director at FC Augsburg. Few outside Germany’s south-west, a hotbed of great managers that has produced the likes of Ralf Ragnick and Joachim Löw, would have known his name when Heidel came calling in 2009, when Jorn Andersen was fired. Tuchel was fully aware that following in Klopp’s footsteps in Mainz would be tough act for him to follow - the current Dortmund manager is revered as a folk hero at the Coface-Arena for winning promotion after countless failed attempts - but also realised that his predecessor’s success had opened the door for him, a virtual no-name. Klopp had taken the reigns there without prior experience as a head coach, too. “I’m happy that the people at Mainz were encouraged by the good experience to make another unpopular decision,” Tuchel said.

His penchant for wearing sweatshirts on the touch-line might have made for one or two problems at the beginning - “I was afraid the fourth official thought I was a very angry substitute,” he joked - but Tuchel is now universally recognised as one of the best in the business. He’s described himself as heavily influenced by the “southwestern school” of football, with its emphasis on collective movement, hard running and aggression “against the ball”, and he has admitted to taking every defeat personally. “As a manager, I always feel more responsible for a defeat than a win,” he has told Süddeutsche Zeitung. Tuchel is an ultra-dedicated, obsessive 24/7 workaholic who can’t stop thinking about football. A regular day sees him at the training ground at 8.15 am. He spends two hours preparing the training session and after training and lunch, he usually stays behind to study video footage of the training and of the next opponents. On days off, he will sometimes take in a game abroad and he also speaks perfect English - insert your own link to a Premier League club here.

Schalke came close to offering him the job last summer. It feels only like a matter of time before he’ll move on to a big job that compliments his undoubted talent. His incredible work at Mainz will probably only be fully recognised once someone else is in charge there but Tuchel and his equally smart club have long been hard at work to minimise any potential fall-out. “We are putting in place structures that will outlive (me),” he told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in April 2010, “there will be mechanisms and a philosophy that will be bigger than the manager Thomas Tuchel”. We’ll find out if he’s right before too long.

Bundesliga Talking Points:

• Bayern Munich’s 5-0 effortless win at Hamburger SV in the DFB Cup quarter-final on Wednesday night did little to lift the mood at the Imtech-Arena. The players and sporting director Oliver Kreuzer confessed to thinking mostly about the six-pointer relegation battle at Braunschweig on Saturday. After many twists and turns, Felix Magath has ruled himself out of the running but the situation might well change again if HSV fail to pick up all three points on Saturday.

• From Bayern’s perspective, the game’s real high-light came when Bastian Schweinsteiger took the field as substitute on 65 minutes. “It felt good,” said the Germany midfielder, who had been out of action for three months following ankle surgery. Even the HSV supporters applauded.

• Ilkay Gündogan’s future, on and off the pitch, is still shrouded in mystery. The Borussia Dortmund play-maker hasn’t kicked a ball since August. Manager Jürgen Klopp confirmed that the 23year-old was still suffering from an “inflammation of a nerve in his back” and needed more time. In addition, there has been no progress in the contract renegotiation with the club. “Everything is possible,” his agent and father Irfan Gündogan told “Kicker.” The current deal expires in 2015.