0-1 at Universitatea Craiova
©IMAGO
After a weak performance, 1. FSV Mainz 05 suffered their first defeat in the league phase of the Conference League. Coach Bo Henriksen’s team lost 0-1 (0-0) away against the Romanian club Universitatea Craiova. Assad Al-Hamlawi scored the winning goal for the home team with a penalty kick (67th minute).
Despite the first defeat on matchday four after three previous wins, Mainz, who are struggling in the Bundesliga, are still on course for the knockout phase in Europe.
As expected, Henriksen made several changes compared to the 1-1 draw in the Bundesliga against TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in order to spare key players for the next appearance in the upper house on Sunday at SC Freiburg. “No, that’s not an issue. Because everyone knows what we want to do,” replied Henriksen on the streaming service “RTL+” when asked whether the total of five changes were a danger because the team was not well-coordinated.
After an even opening phase, Henriksen had to make the first substitution of the game in the 24th minute: regular goalkeeper Robin Zentner was unable to continue due to complaints in the adductor area. Lasse Rieß came in for him, making his debut in the European Cup. Shortly afterwards, Dominik Kohr forced Craiova’s goalkeeper Pavlo Isenko into a brilliant save when he directed a header from the Mainz defender onto the crossbar. Because of a foul, a goal wouldn’t have counted anyway.
Afterwards, Mainz found it difficult to come up with clear offensive actions in a disjointed game. But Craiova didn’t get any dangerous shots until the break. The Mainz team’s performance in the first half was “really too poor,” said club and board chairman Stefan Hofmann during the break. The game remained tough at the start of the second half before 18-year-old Kacper Potulski brought down Craiova professional Alexandru Cicaldau in his own penalty area.
Al-Hamlawi, who had just been substituted, safely converted the penalty. Anyone who had hoped for a quick reaction from Mainz was disappointed. Craiova was even closer to making it 2-0 than FSV was to equalizing. In the final phase, Potulski headed the 05ers from a free kick to make it 1-1 (88th). But after minutes of checking by the VAR, the goal was disallowed due to an offside position.