Mainz, a surprisingly fun club half table in the German Bundesliga. Tickets are usually no problem, and because of the central location you can always make it a good weekend in combination with another club.
The 1. FSV Mainz 05, as the club is fully named was never the biggest club of the region, and used to play most of their matches in the 2. Bundesliga. It changed around the turn of the century when one of their defenders, the anonymous Jürgen Klopp was appointed as their new manager. He turned out to be a bigger talent on the bench than on the pitch, and made from Mainz a stable Bundesliga club. Apart from a single relegation they're still a stable team, and we can say that they really fit in the Bundesliga.
To empower the growth of the club, a new stadium was built for Mainz and opened in 2011. The location of this giant, red box is at least remarkable: to the west of Mainz, in the middle of an open field, with just plain fields for hundreds of meters around the stadium. It makes that you can see the home of FSV Mainz from far away, an amazing sight especially at evening matches. The inside of the Mewa Arena is quite standard, en seems smaller than it really is. Through the big windows in the corners you have a nice view on the landscape around the stadium.
The former stadium of FSV Mainz. The Stadion am Bruchweg was heavily damaged in the Second World War, but from the ruins of Mainz it was rebuilt very fast. In 2011 Mainz had to move on, and the former home base at the Dr.-Martin-Luther-King-Weg was left. But the stadium is still there, except for the demolished north stand. The second team of Mainz still plays it's home matches here in the Regionalliga, and the youth academy is also based here.
Through the heart of Mainz runs the Große Langgasse, a busy street through the Altstadt. It's an important street for FSV Mainz, because here was once Café Neuf, where the club was founded in 1905. The place right in front of Irish Pub The Porter House is marked by a column with a picture of how it once was here, revealed by the chairman in 2020.
The Gutenbergplatz is one of the biggest squares in Mainz, and this is where it happens when there's something to celebrate for FSV Mainz. It doesn't happen too often, but in 2004 it was completely full when Mainz got promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time. The players and manager Klopp appeared on the balcony of the Staatstheater, the giant brown building on the square.
He is already mentioned, Jürgen Klopp, by far the most famous football man of Mainz. As a player, Mainz became his home and when the sympathetic German is not in Liverpool Mainz still is his home. When he's in town he loves to come at Café Raab, not far from the house where he lives for decades now.
Tickets are usually no problem in Mainz. You order them easily on the website of the club, and on match day you can pick them up at the ticket office of the stadium.
From the A60 motorway you take exit 19, Mainz-Finthen. You can't miss the Mewa Arena from there. You can also get there by public transport, from train station Mainz Hauptbahnhof there are special shuttle trams to the stadium.
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