Chapter 14: Chapter 8: A Cornered Klopp

The Mainz U19 match was at 10:00 AM sharp.

That afternoon at 5:00 PM, the Mainz first team played their 26th match of the 2nd Bundesliga season.

Head coach Jurgen Klopp led the team in an away match against Oer.

After drawing with Hoffenheim at home in the previous round, Mainz had now drawn two games in a row.

In the last nine rounds, Mainz’s record was two wins, five draws, and two losses.

Everyone knew that if they couldn’t turn things around soon, Mainz’s excellent shot at promotion to the Bundesliga would be ruined.

The away game against Oer, a team fighting relegation, was a must-win match!

If they couldn’t even beat a relegation-battling team like Oer, how could Mainz even talk about promotion?

Klopp had also meticulously prepared a series of tactics.

He still wanted to dominate the start of the game.

Just four minutes in, midfielder Daniel Gunkel made a run from deep to score the opening goal for Mainz.

This made Klopp exceptionally emotional on the sidelines.

The young, bearded German coach not only cheered loudly but even started shadowboxing on the touchline.

But unexpectedly, he had celebrated too soon.

Just four minutes later, Oer scored from a corner kick, breaching the Mainz goal.

1-1!

The score was cruelly leveled.

In the 16th minute, Oer capitalized on Mainz’s eagerness to attack and launched a counterattack.

Forward Adam Nemec received a pass from his teammate Curry and successfully put Oer in the lead.

Mainz began to panic.

Oer, on the other hand, switched to a defensive counterattack strategy after taking the lead.

The frantic Mainz players almost got into a fight with their opponents. Gunkel and left-back Marco Rose both received yellow cards in quick succession.

But even so, Mainz still couldn’t turn the tide.

After play resumed in the second half, midfielder Kalhan made a run from deep in the 52nd minute, capitalized on a passing error by the opposing center-back, and equalized for Mainz.

Hope was reignited for Mainz.

But in the 69th minute, Oer’s right winger Fabian Müller once again scored against Mainz.

3-2!

Oer was in the lead again.

Klopp immediately substituted two players at once to further bolster the attack.

In the 75th minute, center-forward Borja assisted Kalhan for another goal, completing his brace and leveling the score once more.

But afterward, neither side managed to score again.

In the end, Mainz drew 3-3 with Oer in the away match.

…

When the final whistle blew, Klopp stood stunned on the sidelines.

He truly had no better solution for the team’s current situation.

’I’m out of ideas!’

The key to this match was the first half.

If Mainz wanted to defeat their opponent, they had to increase their attacking pressure.

But the entire 2nd Bundesliga knew that Mainz was in trouble.

Most of their goals this season had come in the first half of the league.

Back then, the team operated very smoothly, with an offense that was like a rising tide.

The attacking combination at the time was the Ecuadorian center-forward Borja, on loan from Olympiacos, along with Marcus Foyelner and Chadli Amri, forming a trident up front.

In midfield, they also had Daniel Gunkel and Miroslav Kalhan, who were adept at making late runs into the box.

This allowed Mainz to perform exceptionally well in the first half of the season. They were not only the best defensive team in the 2nd Bundesliga but also the one with the most potent attack, an unstoppable force.

But the good times didn’t last.

Starting in October, first Foyelner got injured, then Gunkel.

But the biggest problem was Chadli Amri.

The Algerian international, who had been their most active player in the first half of the season, had been plagued by injuries ever since the winter break training camp.

Although none of the injuries were serious, his playing time was sporadic, and his form was very inconsistent.

With the engine of the offense sputtering, the team’s entire midfield and attack came to a halt.

It was also around that time that Klopp received a call from Bayern’s General Manager, Hennes.

Klopp didn’t hide any of this.

He was very good friends with the club’s General Manager, Christian Heidel, so he was completely open and honest with him.

Heidel supported his move to Bayern at the end of the season!

Therefore, this didn’t cause any trouble for Mainz.

On the contrary, many players started working even harder, hoping that Klopp would take them with him when he went to Bayern.

But unexpectedly, Bayern chose Klinsmann.

Under pressure from both inside and out, Mainz’s performance was greatly affected.

Borja, Foyelner, and Gunkel—Mainz’s top three goalscorers this season—had scored almost all of their goals in the first half of the season.

After the winter break, these goalscorers had all gone silent at the same time.

This just went to show the predicament Mainz was currently in!

If it were just a problem with the attack, it might have been manageable.

In the goalkeeper position, the starting keeper Dimo Wahe had only played the first two rounds of the season before being sidelined until March due to shoulder surgery.

The injury to this club veteran, who had been guarding the goal since ’95, had a huge impact on the team.

Fortunately, the backup goalkeeper, Christian Witeklo, performed well after taking over.

But at the end of October, Witeklo also got injured.

And his injury was identical to Dimo Wahe’s: his shoulder.

With two goalkeepers injured one after another, Klopp had no choice but to use his third-string keeper, Daniel Ischdonat.

When March finally came, Dimo Wahe returned from his injury.

But not long ago, the starting keeper got injured again—a meniscus tear—and was out for the rest of the season.

Klopp was truly at his wit’s end regarding the team’s current situation.

He knew how to beat opponents on the pitch, but he couldn’t defeat injuries.

Take this match against Oer, for example.

Klopp believed that in a situation like the first half, if it had happened during the first part of the season, the team would not only have been able to suppress Oer and score continuously, but the backline also wouldn’t have had so many problems.

The center-back pairing of Nowitzki and Subotic was the most stable in the Second Bundesliga this season.

With Rose on the left and Hogland on the right, it was the best defensive line in the 2nd Bundesliga.

It was also the key to how Mainz, despite all its disasters, was still able to maintain its hope for promotion.

But now, they were playing like this.

Klopp really was out of ideas!

…

“Looking at how this match played out, the midfielders Kalhan and Gunkel can’t keep pushing forward like that. With Pekovic left alone at the back, the defense can’t handle the pressure.”

Assistant coach Zeliko Buvac was still analyzing the situation calmly.

He was Klopp’s number one strategist.

Klopp was still frowning. “You saw it too. Borja and Foyelner can’t score right now. The late runs from midfield are barely getting us goals.”

“If they don’t push up, won’t we just be sitting back in a defensive shell?”

Buvac, of course, knew this as well. “The most critical problem right now is that our front trident isn’t putting enough pressure on the opponent’s midfield and defense. We can’t effectively suppress them, which is why the midfielders have to push forward so frequently.”

Borja was on loan at Mainz from Olympiacos in Greece.

He performed exceptionally well in the first half of the season, which had now led to a stalemate in the buyout negotiations between Mainz and Olympiacos.

Moreover, Borja had recently hit a goal drought.

At the end of the day, he wasn’t a Mainz player yet.

Foyelner was a technical player with good speed, excellent footwork, and passing ability, but he primarily played on the left wing.

Chadli Amri wasn’t playing on the right wing; Serdan Balajic started today.

The Serbian forward’s movement was even worse than Foyelner’s.

“Cologne beat Offenbach 3-1 away this round. We’ve dropped to fourth place now, out of the promotion zone.”

The current rule in the Second Bundesliga was that the top three teams were directly promoted, and the bottom four were relegated.

But starting from the 08/09 season, the third-place team would have to play a promotion playoff against the 16th-place team from the Bundesliga.

The third-to-last team would have to play a relegation playoff against the 3rd-place team from the German Third Division.

By then, getting promoted to the Bundesliga would be even more difficult than it was now.

“We have to make a change quickly and get back into the top three, or the situation will become increasingly unfavorable for us.”

Buvac looked at Klopp and reminded him solemnly.

“Don’t forget how we were relegated from the Bundesliga last season.”

Of course, Klopp hadn’t forgotten.

In fact, during the second half of the 06/07 Bundesliga season, Mainz had briefly climbed out of the relegation zone.

At the time, Mainz thought they had weathered the storm and relaxed a bit. That, combined with injuries and other issues, led to the team suffering consecutive crushing defeats in the final rounds.

Starting from round 26, Mainz lost to Werder Bremen, Bayer Leverkusen, VfL Wolfsburg, Schalke 04, Hannover 96, and Stuttgart one after another.

In the final round, they suffered a humiliating 5-2 defeat to Bayern Munich.

Buvac brought this up as an example to remind Klopp that he had to solve their problems as soon as possible and create more breathing room for themselves.

Mainz wasn’t a big club; their margin for error was extremely low!

Klopp heard his trusted assistant’s advice.

But he was in a difficult position.

To solve Mainz’s current predicament, he could either make adjustments to the existing lineup…

…or dig for fresh blood from the team’s current resources.

That only left the second team and the U19s.

“Zeliko, find some time. Let’s go watch the second team play.”

…

Wang Shuo was unaware of the desperate situation the first team’s head coach, Klopp, was facing.

He, on the other hand, was finding his groove more and more with the Mainz U19 team.

A week later, the team faced their 21st match of the season, an away game against Fuerth.

Fuerth’s head coach was former Bayern player Frank Kramer.

Although the Fuerth U19 team hadn’t performed very well this season, they were still very tough on their home turf.

They launched a fierce offensive against Mainz U19 right from the start, and in the 5th minute, a late run from midfielder Martin Sotner breached the Mainz U19 goal.

Afterward, Fuerth switched to their signature defensive counterattack strategy.

Mainz U19 responded with a high press, with Wang Shuo leading the charge to pressure Fuerth U19’s midfield and defense, but it wasn’t very effective.

Instead, it was in the 31st minute that Mainz won the ball near the halfway line and immediately launched a counterattack.

Wang Shuo used his excellent movement to find an open space, receiving a pass from Schürrle on the right side of the penalty area and firing a shot with his right foot to equalize for the team.

1-1!

After that, no more goals were scored for the rest of the first half.

In the second half, Wang Shuo’s stamina advantage became apparent.

He continuously pressed forward, applying pressure.

In the 50th minute, it was Wang Shuo’s high press that forced the Fuerth center-back, Glabbel, into a passing error.

After winning the ball, Wang Shuo charged into the Fuerth penalty area and scored in a one-on-one, putting his team in the lead.

2-1!

Starting in the 55th minute, Frank Kramer made two substitutions in the span of just five minutes.

He made his third substitution in the 70th minute.

All were intended to strengthen the attack.

But Mainz remained dominant. Wang Shuo’s stamina was still plentiful, and he tirelessly applied pressure in the midfield and front lines.

This made Kramny hesitant to substitute him, hoping he could continue to create goal-scoring opportunities.

Sure enough, Wang Shuo soon repaid Kramny’s trust.

In the 76th minute, it was Wang Shuo who made a brilliant tackle in the opponent’s half and passed the ball into the box. Schürrle used his speed to make a diagonal run into the right side of the area, controlled the ball, and scored with a clean shot.

3-1!

Just five minutes later, another high press from Wang Shuo caused chaos. Robin Medinitz snatched the ball in the ensuing scramble and fired a shot from the left side of the box, finding the back of the net.

4-1!

Only at this point did a satisfied Kramny finally make a series of substitutions.

In the end, Mainz U19 completed a 4-1 comeback victory against Fuerth U19 away from home!

After a string of consecutive victories, Kramny’s team had now climbed to 7th place in the Southwest Division with 34 points.

They were now just four points behind the 4th-place team, Frankfurt U19.

And in the next round, Mainz U19 would host Bayern Munich U19, led by the local German prodigy, Thomas Müller.

This was also set to be Mainz U19’s most anticipated home game of the season.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep