SAMSTAG 15:30

Founded: Mar 16, 1905
Club Members: 14,000
Nickname: Karnevalverein 
Coach: Bo Henriksen
Captain: Silvan Widmer

German Amateur Champions: 1
Regionalliga Südwest: 1
Landespokal Südwest Winner: 3

Website: www.mainz05.de

In the Rhineland, the carnival months of November through to February are regarded as a "fifth season" of the year, and 1.FSV Mainz 05 owe their Karnevalverein (Carnival Club) nickname to the region's festive reputation. For a long time however, the moniker had been used as a back handed insult with the suggestion that, as a club, they could never quite be taken seriously. That all changed however with the appointments of Jürgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel; and despite having a dwarfish budget compared to many in the division, the club have defied expectations to become an established Bundesliga performer and are out to prove that they are there for more than just a party.

The club's origins can be traced back to March 1905 with the formation of 1.Mainzer Fußballverein Hassia 1905 and, as with many teams that make up German football today, a series of mergers over time starting with this long forgotten club led to the formation in 1919 of the club we know today as 1.FSV Mainz 05. Life started for Die Nullfünfer (the 05-ers) in the local amateur leagues and they initially made slow but steady progress, winning a number of regional championships in the inter-war period and qualifying for the opening round of the national championships in 1921 after winning the Kreisliga Hessen. After lifting successive Bezirksliga Main-Hessen titles in 1932 and 1933, the club were entered in the Gauliga Südwest, one of the 16 new first division leagues formed in the re-organisation of German football under the Third Reich. It was a brief stay however and, after just one season, Mainz were relegated before the upheaval of World War 2 saw them form part of a combined wartime side called Reichsbahn SV Mainz 05. 

After the war years, the club was reconstituted and played in the top-flight Oberliga Südwest as an unspectacular mid to lower table outfit. Unsurprisingly, Mainz missed the cut when the German FA decided which sixteen clubs should form the new Bundesliga in 1963 and they settled down to life as a second division side for most of the next four decades - although financial problems saw them withdraw to the fifth-tier amateur Oberliga Südwest for most of the 1980s. After being walked back from the brink, the club eventually returned to professional football for a single season cameo after promotion to Bundesliga.2 was achieved in 1988-89 before securing an immediate return in 1990-91 for another go. Initially they were perennial relegation candidates although under unorthodox coach Wolfgang Frank who took his inspiration from Arrigo Sacchi's all-conquering AC Milan side, Mainz became one the first clubs in Germany to adopt a flat back four defence and zonal marking which flew in the face of popular German convention at the time of playing with a 
Libero (sweeper) - a position pioneered by Franz Beckenbauer. It was a tactical switch that changed the direction of German football, influencing a whole new generation of managers including Joachim Löw, Ralf Rangnick ... and a future Mainz coach who would come to define a seemingly unrepeatable era of success at the Hessian club.

In 2001, with the club facing the prospect of relegation to the third tier, Mainz sporting director Christian Heidel approached former player Jürgen Klopp about becoming coach following the sacking of Eckhard Krautzun. Heidel told him he wanted someone who could motivate the players and reinstate Wolfgang Frank's tactical blueprint of 4-4-2 to which Klopp simply said "I can do that ! ". The enthusiastic novice went on to win six of his first seven games in charge and Mainz were safe from relegation with Klopp’s ability to capture and execute the core pillars of Frank’s philosophy proving pivotal in reviving Mainz’s fortunes. In the next two seasons, Mainz narrowly missed out on promotion to the Bundesliga as Klopp and his coaching staff innovated their training methods to hone a high intensity, counter-pressing style that would later become known as 'gegenpressing' and 'heavy metal football'. After the near-misses, Klopp led his furiously hard-working team to a third-place finish in 2003-04 and Mainz were promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time in their history, an achievement that Klopp still regards as the greatest of his career adding "We had a small squad, strong opponents. What I did with Mainz cannot be topped ".

Mainz finished 11th in both their first couple of seasons in the top-flight and even made the Europa League in 2005-06 via the Fair Play Award - although their maiden European adventure ended with a first-round 0-2 aggregate defeat to eventual champions Sevilla. However, with little margin for error in the transfer market and big-money additions out of the question, the club were relegated back to Bundesliga.2 in 2007 with Klopp vowing to do all he could to lead them back to the top table. Failure in that endeavour however saw him step down in 2008 and 20,000 fans packed Gutenburgplatz in Mainz's city centre to give the club's longest serving manager an emotional send off.

After winning promotion back to the Bundesliga in 2008-09 and leading them to their first DFB-Pokal semi-final appearance, Klopp's successor Jörn Anderson was fired just five days before the new season was about to start after an embarrassing early cup exit to Regionalliga side VfB Lübeck and it was U-19s coach Thomas Tuchel who led The 05ers into the 2009-10 Bundesliga campaign. Almost immediately, the comparisons with Klopp arose – a coach in his 30s with fresh ideas normally wouldn’t have been the most exciting prospect, but for Mainz, they had seen this once before and the future was promising. With a young team built around the 'Bruchweg Boys' of Andre Schürrle, Lewis Holtby and Adam Szalai, Tuchel guided them to an impressive 9th place finish in his debut campaign before starting the 2010-11 season with a bang with seven consecutive victories - a record matched only by Bayern München (1995-96) and Kaiserslautern (2001-02) - as Mainz finished the season in a club record high of fifth-place. The club qualified for the Europa League again in 2013-14 as Tuchel developed a reputation as one of Germany's most tactically astute young coaches - regularly switching formations and line-ups during matches whilst playing his own brand of high-octane attacking football.
 

Tuchel resigned at the end of the 2013-14 season after five overachieving seasons and took a 12-month sabbatical before succeeding Klopp again, this time at Dortmund, as comparisons between the two continued to grow. Meanwhile, back at the MEWA Arena, a succession of coaches have struggled to build on the foundations laid by two of German football's most influential managers; and with more time now being spent casting anxious glances towards the bottom of the table rather than the top, the challenge is to prevent a possible Bundesliga exit threatening to rain on the Carnival Club's parade.