FSV managed to pick up a point away to VfL Bochum on Friday night thanks to a late, late goal. It was an important point away to a side also towards the wrong end of the table, but the 05ers were second best for most of the game. The post-match analysis will already start on Saturday, with the club still winless after the first nine Bundesliga games of the season.
REACTION FROM BOCHUM
Sporting director Martin Schmidt: "The late equaliser has somewhat papered over the cracks this evening. The first half was terrible from our point of view. A good 20 minutes after the break are not enough to win here. It wasn’t good enough as a team. There’s no point in trying to be too positive about this game. These are matches that we need to be winning, so everybody needs to ask themselves if they performed as they should have. Our fighting spirit and belief at the end was at least good. An undeserved point could prove to be a real game changer in our season. We’ll take the point, even if our overall performance wasn’t up to scratch. We need to be clear about that. The club is giving the team support, we are all together as a unit, but the players now need to approach games in the right way for a relegation battle.”
Leandro Barreiro: "Every point is important. We fought right until the final whistle, which is the most important thing. We will have to speak about a number of things, but we have to take the positives from scoring an equaliser in the last minute. You could see all the emotion on show after that. We will speak about specific things tomorrow. Our performance definitely wasn’t good enough for a victory tonight though.”
Robin Zentner: "It definitely wasn’t a great game, that was down to the tension. We can’t be happy with our play with the ball, and we had hoped for a better result too. Scoring an equaliser at the end makes you really value the point and it’s good for our confidence too. It was really important in our current situation. With the way we played in the first half, you wouldn’t have known that we’re in a relegation battle, but it was better for periods of the second half. We have to be critical and play with more bravery. We now want to reach the next round of the Pokal and then finally get our first three points in the league against Leipzig.”
Tom Krauß: "It was a bit of a strange goal. I didn’t quite get my feet sorted out and then the shot was slightly deflected. I actually scored a similar goal in training this week. The fact that I managed it in the last minute of a game is much nicer though. It was my first goal for Mainz and earned us an important point. There’s no doubt that our performance, particularly in the first half, wasn’t good. We need to accept that we’re in a relegation battle and that needs to be clear in the way we play. We are bottom of the table and have to stick together – we saw that after the game together with the fans. Things weren’t perfect after the break, but they were better. I want us to take the momentum gained from the equaliser and show that I’m here when called upon.”