Pablo De Blasis admitted he didn't quite know what he was doing when singing the humba with the fans after Mainz's win over Wolfsburg - © © imago
Pablo De Blasis admitted he didn't quite know what he was doing when singing the humba with the fans after Mainz's win over Wolfsburg - © © imago

De Blasis: 'It's great to be supported like that'

xwhatsappmailcopy-link

Goalscorer Pablo de Blasis was bowled over by the support that came his way after scoring in 1. FSV Mainz 05's 2-0 win over VfL Wolfsburg on Saturday.

1. FSV Mainz 05 2-0 VfL Wolfsburg

Goals: 1-0 De Blasis (31'), 2-0 Malli (75')

Meanwhile, the Wolves, who lost Julian Draxler to a red card after just 13 minutes, were left to ruefully digest their second defeat in four days as the season enters another international break.

Daniel Brosinski (Mainz defender): “It was a tough game. The red card obviously helped and we managed to control the game much better. We knew if we threw everything at them and made it a competitive game, we’d get our chances, and we took them well.”

Pablo De Blasis (Mainz midfielder): “It was my first time going over to the fans by myself to celebrate and I didn’t really know what to do! But thankfully the fans sang first and I could just repeat what they were saying. It’s a great feeling to be supported like that.”

Martin Schmidt (Mainz head coach): "I can finally celebrate a home win again, and in front of such great fans too. We wanted to make sure we closed the spaces down well and we managed to do that. The red card helped us but we still had to be patient and not charge forward. Scoring two against Wolfsburg is a great compliment to the team, but perhaps the bigger compliment is that we didn't concede. They were three bonus points today."

Andre Schürrle (Wolfsburg midfielder): “The red card changed the game completely. Mainz still went into their shell a bit and we had more possession, but we couldn’t create much up front. In the second half they had some good counter-attacking situations and managed to score the second goal. It was basically pretty tough for us with ten men and we tired in the game.”

Maximilian Arnold: (Wolfsburg midfielder): ‘We want to be playing every three or four days, so we can’t use fatigue [after Wednesday’s defeat at PSV Eindhoven in the UEFA Champions League] as an excuse. We’re pretty disappointed with how things went today and we obviously had much higher expectations.”

Dieter Hecking (Wolfsburg head coach): "Looking at the stats, we had 61 per cent possession with only ten men, and that says it all really: we don't do enough with the ball. With ten men we had to leave spaces and Mainz knew how to exploit them. We're not happy with the way the team is playing. The table looks good for us - we're in third - but that's only because other teams are doing us the favour of also playing inconsistently."