“It wasn’t our day”

“We could have played for another 45 minutes and not found the net,” said Martin Schmidt after Saturday’s defeat to Bayer 04. FSV were ultimately punished for wasting early chances and failing to take advantage of their periods of dominance. After taking the lead, the guests remained resolute and made it difficult for Mainz to break them down.

Reaction from the MEWA ARENA

Martin Schmidt: “You can sum it up quite quickly. We scored one of the goals ourselves and gifted the other two. Leverkusen are taking all three points after quite an ordinary performance. It is bitter when you look at the full game. We were better in terms of play, in terms of possession and in terms of shots. It wasn’t our day and we need to move on.”

Robin Zentner: “We annoyed about this one. You have to fight hard to win games and today we gifted it. That is very bitter. We need to be stronger in the duels, you can see that from a couple of the goals. When you look at the game, however, you can see that there was something in it for us. But all too often we didn’t know what to do when we had the ball and we couldn’t hurt Leverkusen.”

Stefan Bell: “We need to assess where we went wrong in the first half. Even aside from the two goals we defended too weakly and with not enough intensity. Overall we were not convincing enough going forwards and in terms of our positioning we left far too many gaps. We have a few things to work on for sure.”

Maxim Leitsch: “It’s a tough defeat to take. We let Leverkusen in far too easily. They didn’t play that well but still won 3-0. Everyone has to step up this week and turn it up a notch. That’s how mistakes are punished when you’re a defender.”