Bad luck for Kohr and Burkhardt
As a result, Mainz remained the clearly better team. In the 20th minute, Dominik Kohr’s header hit the crossbar, and Bielefeld hardly posed a goal threat at all. It was not until the 43rd minute that Patrick Wimmer appeared dangerously in front of the Mainz goal, but his dropkick flew just wide of the goal. At this point in time, Frank Kramer’s team had already gone 350 consecutive Bundesliga minutes without a goal.
Mainz should have decided the game shortly after the restart. After preparing Aarón Martin, Burkhardt had the empty Arminia goal in front of him, but wanted to make it particularly nice and curled the ball to the underside of the bar.
Three Mainz hit from the point
Then Niakhaté got “his” goal after all. This was preceded by a rather unclever duel by Wimmer in his own penalty area against Mainz joker Leandro Barreiro. Zwayer gave the penalty that was due, and Niakhaté humorlessly converted the ball into the right corner (65′). And Bielefeld continued to play like a relegated team: barely existent up front, mentally always a step too slow at the back.
Fifteen minutes before the end, Andrade laid Barreiro very clumsily – this time, to the surprise of Niakhaté, Burkardt took over the execution, but didn’t give Ortega a chance either (75′). And chopping wood in his own sixteen went even further. Less than three minutes later, Manuel Prietl knocked down Marcus Ingvartsen, who also won the penalty discussion against Niakhaté – 4:0.
Penalty record and proud series
That was a record: There have never been three different penalty takers in a quarter of an hour in the history of the Bundesliga. Also amazing: Mainz have converted all 35 penalties in the Bundesliga since May 2013.
Bielefeld are now going into the groundbreaking game after the international break against VfB Stuttgart (April 3, 2022) with a lot of construction sites and on the relegation place. Mainz are guests at Borussia Mönchengladbach the next day.