"Lots of people rubbed their eyes in surprise" | OneFootball

77,000 BVB fans among the 81,365 spectators in the sold-out SIGNAL IDUNA PARK went home satisfied on Sunday evening. Their team had secured a 3-1 win over Mainz, who were third in the table at the start of the weekend. Bo Henriksen, the coach of the league's unexpected overachievers this season, made it clear that the win was well deserved.

A strong move involving Julian Brandt, Karim Adeyemi and Maximilian Beier - finished off by the latter - made it 1-0 towards the end of the first half, while two sharp and precise corners from Nico Schlotterbeck resulted in header goals from Emre Can to make it 2-0 and Beier to make it 3-0.

"Set-pieces are part of football," said Niko Kovac after the match. His team had fallen behind from dead-ball situations in their recent defeats against Augsburg and Leipzig, so "it was now time to score goals from them ourselves to turn the game in the right direction".

The team practised plenty of corner kicks. Daniel Svensson was actually intended to be the taker, but the winter newcomer did not feel fit enough to start after recovering from injury, so Nico Schlotterbeck was chosen: "We wanted to drive them in hard towards goal. That worked very well in training. I tried to strike them in the game just like I did in training," he said. Niko Kovac was full of praise: "Lots of people rubbed their eyes in surprise. The result proves us right. Nico is really good at them," said the BVB head coach.

The corners were important, but they were far from the only decisive factor in the win. "We had to match them physically. We did that for 90 minutes," said Kovac, adding: "We wouldn't have been able to do it just by playing good football. We had to throw everything at it to win this game. The important thing is to work together against the ball."

27 of the 34 league fixtures have now been played. "What is still possible?" was one of the questions Kovac was asked at his post-match press conference. "I don't spend much time looking at the table," replied the coach. However, a cursory glance revealed: "If we win the next game, we'll be relatively close to Freiburg. But we'll have to really stretch ourselves. We won't get anything for free."

Especially as the Black & Yellows have another problem to contend with: Yan Couto and Schlotterbeck were yellow-carded for the fifth time this season in the match against Mainz, and will have to watch on from the stands in Freiburg. Emre Can, Pascal Gross and Julian Ryerson will each start the match with four cautions. Daniel Svensson, initially intended to take the corners, is at least at no risk of receiving a suspension...Boris Rupert