That's part of our DNA

Bundesliga side Mainz 05 returned to Cape Town for the next phase of their South African partnership. Mainz Technical Director, Meikel Schönweitz, sat down with Soccer Laduma's Matthew Petersen to discuss his role at the club and Mainz's Bundesliga campaign as the season draws to a close. The German also discusses Mainz's visit to South Africa and shares his insights on the club's "structure, culture and content" plan in South Africa, how they are working to develop South African talent and their plans for the future.

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Matthew Petersen: Hi Meikel, at some clubs, the Technical Director is involved in the hiring and firing of managers. Is that part of your role at Mainz? Meikel Schönweitz: Yes, that is part of my role. At Mainz, our responsibilities are divided. We have a Sporting Director and a Technical Director, and both of us are responsible for the professional team, squad planning, staff management and so on. I'm also responsible for the youth teams and for overseeing the transition of youth players into the professional team. That is the biggest part of my job, along with being involved in hiring and firing decisions.

MP: Mainz sat at the bottom of the table in December 2025 but are now comfortable in mid-table. What do you think were some of the factors behind the tough start? MS: It was not the first time for us.

We've experienced that in previous years as well. This year, one possible reason was that we were playing in three different competitions. We played in the Bundesliga, in the DFB-Pokal, which is our national cup competition, and after qualifying for Europe last year, we were also playing in European competition. We are a team that needs training, and this year we didn't have enough time for training because we were playing a game every three days. That may be one reason why we didn't perform so well in the first half of the season, but we managed to turn things around.

MP: Urs Fischer joined the club and produced the best points-per-game record at Mainz since 2008. What has he done differently from some of the previous managers? MS: He changed the mindset of the team completely. It was a 180-degree turnaround. We had a good coach before in Bo Henriksen.