Against a side coached by Urs Fischer, it seemed almost inevitable that it would be Sheraldo Becker that threw Marie-Louise Eta and her 1. FC Union Players into turmoil, equalising for Mainz after Union had dominated the first half. But those old favourites and heroes were to fall to the side as Union roared back at them in the fading moments of this game. Mainz were never going to be easy - what Fischer side is? - but Eta’s substitutes came good, as her strikers scored. She talked of her players skill, but also of their courage. They simply never gave up.

She looked delighted at the final whistle, and rightly so. She had her first Bundeliga win as a head coach.

Maybe it was clear from the off. With a minute on the clock, Becker tried to wriggle past Danilho Doekhi, but Union’s centre-back knows his game well; they had faced each other enough in training during their time together at Union. Doekhi brushed him off the ball, quickly adjusting to life in a back-four again. His partner there in the middle, Diogo Leite, launched himself in to stop a Nadiem Amiri cross from the right-hand edge of the 18-yard box not long after Mainz’s top scorer had pirouetted his way around Aljoscha Kemlein. 

The game took a while to get going. Play was interrupted early after Danny Da Costa came off worst in a duel with Oliver Burke, (he wouldn’t make it past 15 minutes, suffering from the blow still) but once up and running it took a wonderful save from Robin Zentner to somehow palm Andrej Ilić’s powerful head over the bar. It had come from a Christopher Trimmel corner, hit swinging-in, and Union’s striker had done everything right, bar beating the keeper’s right hand.

Union were sharp in the tackle; Tom Rothe diving in cleanly at Kaishu Sano’s feet, Aljoscha Kemlein dispossessing Paul Nebel, even if he did seem to carry the ball out of play, an infringement unseen by the linesman. But they looked dangerous attacking, too, and Stefan Posch did well to get across in time to snuff out the danger posed when Livan Burcu looked to get in behind the Mainz defence. 

17 minutes brought the next break in play, as tennis balls made their reappearance in top flight football, thrown in protest at the timing of games such as this. The players milled around; Eta instructed Burke; Ilić booted one as far as he could. Referee, Florian Exner, held the match ball, his whistle in his lips, an impatient look on his face. The game eventually restarted six minutes later, but still it stopped and started. Though Union were controlling possession, and playing deeper inside the Mainz half, neither side could get up much of a head of steam.

Burcu found Rothe, who crossed for Doekhi, but, stooping, he couldn’t get much weight on his header to trouble Zentner. Burke found Trimmel backwards on the right, but after the ball came to Rothe, his pass outside to Burcu was overhit.

As the half went on, Mainz were starting to make an impression at the other end. Sano carried on having left Ansah in a heap, before Becker tricked his way inside, but Nebel couldn’t quite get it under control as it flashed his way. Phillip Tietz’s header was too weak to worry Klaus.

Union would, however, take a deserved lead with 38 minutes up, the product of a short corner routine, Trimmel laying the ball off for Burcu. He took a couple of short steps and passed backwards to Kemlein, whose cross bent in perfectly for Ilić to head it past Zentner, having slipped in between him and Posch. It was perfectly executed, calmly finished. 

With two minutes of the nine added onto the end of the first half, play stopped again, this time as Burcu writhed in agony, holding his lower back, needing significant treatment. When he returned to the pitch, he did so gingerly, but at least he was back. And though quickly involved as Union again looked to build patiently up the right, it was Mainz who had the next big chance, this time after Cano beat Ansah, and squared for the onrushing Kacper Potulski. Union could be grateful that he isn’t a striker, and it showed, as he sliced his finish wide of Karl’s goal.

Sano was causing problems as the long-delayed break loomed, and it took the dual efforts of Doekhi and Klaus to stop his shot towards the back post.

But Burcu wasn’t done, and he drew a good stop from Zentner, getting down low to the base of the front post to stop his stabbed shot that looked destined to squeeze just inside.

Eta made no changes at the break, and her side were just Potulski’s toe away from creating a breakthrough as Burke loomed. But the scores were levelled within two minutes of the restart, and it was with a certain sense of inevitability that it would be Becker, who would poke Nebel’s cross home with the simplest of volleys. He didn’t celebrate; he didn’t need to.

Mainz, buoyed by the goal, came close almost straight afterwards, but Klaus did excellently, throwing himself to parry Potulski’s flicked, goal-bound header. Anthony Caci then fired over, having tricked his way into the chance on the very edge of the box past Rothe.

Zentner had to react quickly, springing forwards to clear Burke’s delicious little ball in, just in time, with both Ilić and Rothe charging in, but if they thought their luck was out, it fell their way after Tietz thought he had given the hosts the lead on 55 minutes, volleying back over his head from Caci’s cross (while almost taking Becker’s head off in the process). After a VAR check, it was chalked off for offside, by a millimetre. Union could breathe again.

Immediately, Eta reacted, with Derrick Köhn coming on for the first time under her leadership for Rothe, alongside Wooyeong Jeong and Andras Schäfer, replacing Burcu and Ansah. Schäfer was in the thick of things immediately, but his left-footed shot curled in just too close to Zentner.

Union, now pushed regularly back deep into their own half, broke through Leite, striding forwards in that unmissable style, his left hand cocked to the side, but he was bundled off the ball by Nikolas Veratschnig. Schäfer was crashed into by Jae-Sung Lee, the Korean getting booked. Becker whipped cross into the box for Mainz, but Klaus was quick to spot it and held the ball after one bounce, at chest height. 

With ten minutes to play, and the game now drifting a little, Eta brought Josip Juranović on for the captain, Trimmel. Her side were now fighting everything coming their way, with Leite heading another Mwene cross away at the last. But then they broke and were a hair’s breadth away from re-taking the lead as Ilić raced onto the ball, ignoring the overlapping Köhn on the left, and crashing his shot off the bar.

But it was a sign that maybe something was coming. And within a minute, it did. Köhn shimmered on the left, beating his man and crossing deep for Ilić who headed back across goal towards Burke. The Scot still had much to do, but brought the ball down on the turn, under pressure all the way, and whipped his left-footed shot past the flat-footed Zentner. 

They weren’t done. With 91 minutes on the clock, Kemlein found Tim Skarke with a glorious ball, cutting the Mainz defence to shreds. Skarke bore down on goal, but spotted Juranović hoving into space to his right. He squared for the Croatian international to bury his first goal for Union in over three years. That had come against Bochum, under Ficher, and had kept Union in third. 

Though the table now looks somewhat different, and Fischer and Becker are happy in mainz, it, somehow, felt just as good.