Christian Heidel returns to FSV Mainz 05. A little more than four and a half years after the former manager of the Bundesliga club left for FC Schalke, he signed a contract as sports director on Monday. He is virtually the successor to his successor. Rouven Schröder resigned on Tuesday last week. The manager, the chairman of the association and board of directors, Stefan Hofmann, and the chairman of the board, Detlev Höhne, apparently only let the manager know about their plans to bring the 57-year-old to the board of directors shortly before the talks with Heidel were over. Schröder apparently felt deceived or feared a loss of competence or both and as a consequence asked for the termination of his contract, which ran until mid-2024.
That, in turn, posed a problem for Heidel. After leaving Schalke in March of last year and suffering a stroke in the summer of 2019, he wanted to take on responsibility again in Mainz, but did not want to get into day-to-day business and, for example, plan the squad. After Schröder’s sudden exit, however, Heidel threatened to slip into exactly this role, which is why he asked for time to think about the Christmas days.
Mainz crisis
He has reportedly successfully used it to look for a new sports director. This still-to-be-created post is also to be taken over by an acquaintance in Mainz: Martin Schmidt, who came to FSV in 2010 as a U-23 coach, was promoted from Heidel to head coach in February 2017, and led the team to the Europa League a year and a half later had to go under Schröder in summer 2018. This was followed by short-term engagements at VfL Wolfsburg and FC Augsburg for the Swiss; Most recently, the 53-year-old worked as an expert for the TV broadcaster Sky.
Heidel’s decision to return to the club whose development from a chronically relegation-threatened second to an established (even if most recently mostly fighting to stay in class) top division club would have been inconceivable without him, saves those responsible from a highly threatening scenario: without sufficient competence and having to face the biggest sporting crisis in twelve years with a coach and a team that this season has shown too seldom to cope with the demands of the relegation battle.
24 years with Mainz
In his 24 years as a manager in Mainz, Heidel installed a total of 14 coaches, one twice (Wolfgang Frank), and, as it turned out, landed two great coups: Jürgen Klopp, promoted from player to head coach overnight. And Thomas Tuchel, who at that time only worked in Rheinhessen for a year and immediately became German A-Youth Champion with the Mainz offspring. Heidel’s number 14 became Martin Schmidt. His first official act as sports director should be to sign number 15. It now seems impossible that Jan-Moritz Lichte will continue to hold the position of head coach.
And they also know the first contender for this post in Mainz: Bo Svensson, active as a professional under Klopp and Tuchel from 2007 to 2014, then Schmidt’s co-coach for a few months, then responsible for the U16, U17 and U19 and coach for a year and a half of the Austrian second division club FC Liefering. There could be the hook for a return campaign by the Dane: RB Salzburg paid a transfer fee of around 1.5 million euros to get Svensson and to show him to the academy team. It is difficult to imagine that the group will now let the 41-year-old go for free.
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