AWhen asked what comes to mind about Mainz and football there, Bo Svensson says “that you don’t take yourself too seriously”. A second keyword is “resilience”. And: “Football has the ability to shape a city and win it over for the club. That is the case in Mainz. ”At least it was. Anyone who has followed the fate of FSV Mainz 05 in recent years could not hide the increasing alienation between fans and team, between the population and the club.
Because of the development of football in general, for homemade reasons in particular, because of an unattractive and unsuccessful way of playing and because of a latent lack of interest on the part of the Mainz native himself. Corona, with the result of playing in empty stadiums for a year and a half, still acted as a catalyst on the way to lethargy.
Loaded with hope
It is largely thanks to Svensson that the mood has turned again and that the supporters of the only Rhineland-Palatinate club in the Bundesliga are proud to speak of their club again. At the beginning of January, after one and a half seasons as a coach in the Austrian second division, he returned to the Bruchweg, where he worked as a professional from 2007 to 2014 and then as a co-trainer and youth coach, he was overloaded with hopes that could not be fulfilled – and fulfilled them. Svensson gave the designated relegated team a new style of play, made important and correct personnel decisions and saved the Mainz team with the biggest catch-up in the history of the league in their 13th top division season in a row.
Regardless of the wave of enthusiasm that the people of Mainz have surfed since taking office, the Dane remains true to himself. Both in the meticulous daily work in which he openly criticizes what he did not like, even after victories such as the cup fight against Bielefeld, as well as in his personal, reserved manner. “I’m not a person who comes into a room and everyone is extroverted wins over himself, as maybe Kloppo does, ”he draws a comparison with the former Rhineland-Hessian tribune Jürgen Klopp.
The history of his short-term return to Mainz also shows what makes the 42-year-old tick. When sports director Christian Heidel called him on Christmas Eve last year to make him head coach, Svensson found this an attractive offer – but he hesitated. Because he had thought a lot about whether he would help the club with his style and skills as a coach, whether he could repay what he experienced here in his playing career. In the cathedral city they were later able to make three crosses so that his doubts did not prevail.
Connected to the city
Not only those responsible and fans were happy about it, but also Svensson’s family, who stayed in Mainz during his engagement with FC Liefering. The football teacher feels that being home again and being able to work as a Bundesliga coach where they live together is a privilege that only a few colleagues enjoy. The approximately 570 kilometers each way that he covered on the weekends during his time in Salzburg would have cost a lot of energy, he says.
For Bo Svensson, wife Ulla and the three children, living in Mainz is not a job-related compromise. You feel comfortable in the city. “I feel a connection with the city,” he says. With the club anyway, since he had his first game in the venerable Bruchweg Stadium, back then in the second division and, due to an injury, in the stands. “It was fascinating that an hour before kick-off there was a great atmosphere,” he remembers. “It is no coincidence that Carnival takes place in Mainz – the people don’t play it, they are so excited.”
It was more than 14 years ago, Klopp was a coach, and the time of Wolfgang Frank, the visionary who had initiated many things and after whom the club recently named its training center, was already more than seven years ago. Svensson, however, has dealt with the time before his time, he is aware of the development that the club has taken and he says: “The club must stand in this tradition.” In the tradition of Frank, Klopp, Heidel and also Thomas Tuchel, who shaped him the most as a coach. He wants to grow old in Denmark, says Svensson. Until then, there is still a little way to go. And for the transition, he says, he has found a place that suits him as a Dane: Mainz.
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