Mwene on staying in the league

“Nobody wants to travel to the EURO as a relegated team”

ÖFB team player Phillipp Mwene got back on track with Mainz in the tough battle to stay in the league. After the defeat to Bayern Munich, they have now gone four games unbeaten. The 30-year-old Viennese scored for the first time this season in the last 4:1 win against Hoffenheim.

"We got together, didn't lose our nerve and everyone focused on our defensive work. What's more, the strikers are now also scoring at the right time," said a delighted Phillipp Mwene. He suffered a bitter 8-1 defeat with Mainz at Bayern Munich at the beginning of March. Since the defeat to the now defunct champions, however, Mwene & Co. have flipped the switch at the perfect time, picking up ten points from their last four league games and also scoring three times. With five games to go, the momentum could be worth its weight in gold for Mainz, who are in 16th place (relegation spot) and just one point behind Bochum and the drop zone.

However, the relegation battle is not new territory for Mwene, who always played for titles with Eindhoven before his return - in 2018, the Viennese and Kaiserslautern went down to the 3rd division. "We have to keep up the pressure and take something from every game. A good game is now secondary. All the players are fit. I'm very confident that we'll manage to stay in the league," said the 30-year-old.

He again played strongly on the left side of defense in the red-white-red A team in the last 6-1 win against Turkey and has always been in the starting eleven under team boss Ralf Rangnick in the last three test matches, including three wins. "Everyone is on fire for everyone else, you can really feel that in every action. The atmosphere is perfect, I was able to take the momentum back to the club."

On Saturday, they will look to take the next important step towards staying in the league against Freiburg with team striker Michael Gregoritsch, who celebrated his 30th birthday on Thursday. Which would be extremely important for Mwene ahead of the upcoming major event, because: "Nobody wants to travel to the EURO as a relegated team!" No empty words from the full-back, in the last 4:1 against Hoffenheim he scored his first goal of the season to make it 2:1. Hopefully it wasn't the last shout of joy.