dBo Henriksen has already shown his ability to avoid relegation. last season in FC Zurich, which took over in October 2022 in last place in the Swiss Super League, kept it in the league and temporarily brought it to the top in the current season. His new boss does not expect the latter from him, but she does want the Dane to stay in the Bundesliga at FSV Mainz 05, whom they presented as the new coach on Tuesday afternoon.
Henriksen is the third man on the Rheinhessen bench this season. He advanced to the round with his compatriot Bo Svensson, but the team could not match the performance of the previous two and a half years.
After the cup defeat against Hertha BSC, the former 05 professional asked for the second time in a few weeks to be relieved of his position, this time he was received with open ears. Taking his place will be Jan Siewert, who previously worked as an under-23 coach in Mainz.
I didn't hear much about 'Helau'
He debuted in a 2-0 win against RB Leipzig, but his first win of the season was not followed by a second. Sunday's 1:3 in Stuttgart was Siewert's last appearance, on Rose Monday the club announced their separation and, on the afternoon of the silliest party, the successor signed his contract, which will be valid until the summer of 2026. “We don't hear much about 'Helau',” says the 05 sports director Christian Heidel. “That has something to do with the fact that we are looking at the situation again before the last third of the season and unfortunately we were in a situation where we had to do something.”
Now Henriksen should fix it Jurgen Klopp (2001 for Eckhart Krautzun) and Martin Schmidt (2015 for Kasper Hjulmand), the third Mainz coach to take over at Carnival. The first stop in his coaching career was the Danish club Brønshøj BK, with which he was promoted to the second division in 2010. From 2014 to 2020, Henriksen coached AC Horsens, which he led to the Super League in 2016. In the 2021 season/ 2022 won the Danish Cup with FC Midtjylland. With FC Zurich he recently held third place in the Swiss upper house; The newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” called him the “happiness maker of the FCZ”.
“Bo's decision not to renew his contract there had nothing to do with us,” says Heidel. “We had our first contact only last Friday. But we looked at it very carefully beforehand in case we had to make a change.”
The new one attests that the squad has a lot of quality (“power, speed, ball handling”) and the ability to win games. This must be achieved, on the one hand, with powerful football and, on the other, on a mental level: he wants to take away the players' fear of losing and give them new fun. Is it easy to change from one club to another in a few days? “Nothing is easy in life. But it is about football, about faith, about trust.”
Christian Heidel is convinced “that Bo is a guy who wakes up the team and really takes away the fear of the players. He can convey everything because that is how he thinks.” Henriksen has repeatedly managed throughout his career to “build teams and play football that is at the same time pragmatic, brave and successful.”