Svensson shoulders blame for loss: "I didn't do my job well enough."
It's been a wild calendar year for FSV Mainz 05 trainer Bo Svensson. The Danish head coach's 2021 ended just as it began, with a league loss to Eintracht Frankfurt.
In-between those two losses, Svensson has amassed an amazing 57-point haul with his club in the 2020/21 "Rück-Runde" and the 2021/22 "Hin-Runde."
The 42-year-old was nevertheless perturbed at ending the year on a loss.
Bo Svensson didn't feel in much of a self-congratulatory mood on Saturday afternoon, despite concluding a calendar year in which he engineered the greatest relegation escape in Bundesliga history last year and took low-budget Mainz to within a whisker of the European places halfway through the current campaign.
In-between those two losses, Svensson has amassed an amazing 57-point haul with his club in the 2020/21 "Rück-Runde" and the 2021/22 "Hin-Runde."
The 42-year-old was nevertheless perturbed at ending the year on a loss.
"It's aggravating," Svensson told the Sky microphones afterwards when discussing today's loss, "We slept through the first half, weren't on the ball, were too late in reacting, played badly and weren't ready."
"That's actually my fault," Svensson added, "It's my responsibility. I didn't do my job well enough."
The suddenly quite angry Svensson seems to be here to stay. The Rheinhessen trainer remains a pure competitor; one who expects a great deal from his squad and himself.
Other Nullfünfter actors struck a more positive tone in their post-match interviews.
"If you take a step back, you can be happy and grateful that we're still in the first division at all," defender Stefan Bell (given a fresh start under the Svensson regime) said afterwards, "No one would have thought that 12 months ago."
Sporting director Martin Schmidt, after admitting that he wished to head to the Christmas break, still hailed the team for "a very solid first half of the season."