2. Bundesliga
In Germany they say that all good things come in threes, but not necessarily when it comes to Mainz’s efforts to reach the Bundesliga for the first time. The 05ers so narrowly missed out on top-flight promotion three times down the years, including by a single goal in added time on the final day in 2003. But their efforts under now legendary coach Jürgen Klopp were finally rewarded the following year.
There were tears once again in Mainz on 23 May 2004, but this time not due to sadness, frustration or disappointment. This time they were tears of unbridled delight in a city that’s famous for knowing how to celebrate. After three agonising failed attempts to climb out of the second division, this team had finally managed to bring Bundesliga football to the Carnival stronghold just across the river from Frankfurt.
But it had been another experience that left nerves completely frayed among 05ers supporters. Klopp’s team weren’t in control of their own fate going into the 34th and final matchday. They needed results elsewhere to go their way on that Sunday 20 years ago.
And it did indeed all go their way. Alemannia Aachen were two points ahead before kick-off on the final day, occupying the third and final promotion place, but they slipped to a 1-0 defeat at Karlsruhe. That opened the door for Mainz, who claimed a comfortable 3-0 win at home to Eintracht Trier and snatched third place. Their haul of 54 points was the lowest of any team to achieve promotion at the time, and they hadn't even occupied a spot in the top three during the season, but Klopp and his team didn’t care. They’d finally managed to do what no Mainz team had done before and reach the top tier of the footballing pyramid.
“We’ll go all night and turn the place upside down,” the now legendary coach announced of his team’s plans to celebrate. Now 20 years on, Klopp still has fond memories of that historic day on 23 May 2004. “That day was one of the best of my life, because it meant so much for everyone, and obviously also for me,” he recently said in an interview with the Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz. And it was the previous painful close calls that made eventual promotion to the Bundesliga so much sweeter. It means that despite all the trophies he’s won since at Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool, Klopp still rates Mainz’s first Bundesliga promotion as the greatest success of his career.
“We hardly had any money at the time at Mainz, and nobody saw us being in the first division,” the now 57-year-old once stated when explaining how he felt about that moment. “We at Mainz were the team with the players who got their second chance, whose careers were halfway over, who we nursed back to health and got back on track. Yes, I won bigger titles later, but I also had better teams and more money available. That’s simply my feeling,” said Klopp, who took over as coach during Carnival in 2001 while still actually playing for the team that was at risk of Bundesliga 2 relegation.
The Stuttgart native played 325 games for the 05ers after joining in 1990, making him the club’s record appearance holder in Bundesliga 2, and was part of the team that made its first almost-attempt at Bundesliga promotion. Back in 1996/97, Mainz were making a surprise push at the top, at first under Wolfgang Frank – the man seen as the architect for Mainz’s upswing – and then Reinhard Saftig. They were in control of their own destiny going into the final day, with a win at Wolfsburg enough to take them up. But a crazy 90 minutes, in which Klopp scored Mainz’s second to make it 3-2, ended in a 5-4 defeat that meant the Wolves would go up to the big time for the first time instead of the 05ers.
“It would’ve been too early,” Christian Heidel once claimed in kicker. “In hindsight, almost everyone can say now that it was good that we took another seven years for promotion. In 2004, we’d already renovated the stadium and were better prepared on the whole,” the club’s long-time decision-maker explained. The drama of that first failed promotion push laid the foundations for the success that would eventually arrive, with Klopp also a driving factor there. “The summer of 1997 played a big part in realising that a lot of coaches don’t understand our team. That led to the decision to make him coach,” Heidel revealed.
Immediately going from player to coach, Klopp then spearheaded the next upturn at the Bruchweg and the next dramatic promotion attempt. Having kept them in the division, his first full season in charge was complete with ups and downs. Mainz were top at the halfway stage, at one time were 10 points clear of the team in fourth, were in a promotion place for 30 out of 34 matchdays, and were second going into the final day. But it all amounted to nothing as a 3-1 loss away at Union Berlin allowed both Arminia Bielefeld (3-1 win against Rot-Weiß Ahlen) and Bochum (3-1 win at Alemannia Aachen) to leapfrog the 05ers at the death.
But if people thought that was a cruel and dramatic way to miss out, then imagine how they felt the year after. After coming up short by one point in 2001/02, the difference in 2002/03 was a single goal. Again, it all came down to the final day, but this time Klopp’s side were chasing from below, beginning the game in fourth and looking to reel in near neighbours Eintracht Frankfurt, who had the same number of points but were one goal better off. With 10 minutes to go, Mainz were 4-0 up at Eintracht Braunschweig thanks to four goals from Benjamin Auer. Over in Frankfurt, Eintracht were tied at 3-3 with relegation-bound Reutlingen. Then in the space of three minutes, the 05ers conceded a goal and Frankfurt went 4-3 up but were still two goals short in their quest to remain in third.
Once the final whistle went in Braunschweig, Klopp and his team were left following the events in Frankfurt on a radio. Bakary Diakité then struck in the 90th minute and Alexander Schur got another in added time for the Eagles. With a goal difference of +26 to Mainz’s +25, Eintracht were going up. The 05ers were once again left in tears after a cruel final twist in the season. “We will get back up. We won’t fall apart because of this game. We’ll never do that. If anybody can do it at the third time of asking, then it’s us!” a visibly distraught Klopp announced to the equally disappointed fans at a reception in the city.
“Last year we came up one point short, this year one goal. Next year Bundesliga,” proclaimed Mayor of Mainz Jens Beutel. And he was proven correct. In 2004, the 05ers finally came out on the right side of a nervy final day – memories that Klopp still cherishes. “I don’t often watch old videos, but it wasn’t that long ago that I watched my press conference from the day we got promoted on YouTube,” he revealed with a grin to the Allgemeine Zeitung. “And when I see the huge chances that Alemannia Aachen wasted in Karlsruhe… If I’d known about those at the time, I probably would’ve had a heart attack.”
Learning from defeats, gaining strength from disappointment and seeing failure as a chance – they’re all standard clichés from a poor motivational course, but they seem to actually mean something at Mainz. Over time, it’s helped them believe that they were among the best teams in Bundesliga 2 and actually deserved to be in the Bundesliga. It’s a belief that still prevails around the club today.
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“We developed a different sort of concept of ourselves,” Klopp continuously stressed. And it’s helped the 05ers come out on the right side of football history more often than not since, achieving a happy ending for “the longest and most emotionally gruelling journey that a club has ever taken to the Bundesliga”.