“We earned that bit of luck”

Daniel Heuer Fernandes: We gave everything in difficult conditions on this pitch. The way we played was positive. We went behind, but we managed to get ourselves back into the game, and that’s one of the qualities that defines us. The past few weeks have shown how stable we are as a team. There was obviously a bit of luck involved with Fabio’s free-kick, but that’s part of a game like this. The opposition also had their share of luck in a couple of situations, there could easily have been two second yellow cards. In the end, the draw is a fair result.

Miro Muheim: From a footballing point of view, it wasn’t exactly a classic today. It was a very hard-fought game. We accepted the challenge and can be satisfied with a point in Mainz. There were one or two controversial moments: from my perspective, Mainz could have had two players sent off for second yellow cards, but the referee saw it differently. If we’d been a man up, more might have been possible.

Jordan Torunarigha: We had one or two chances early on that we unfortunately didn’t take. Then we conceded a goal we didn’t really need to give away. After that we earned a bit of luck and managed to equalise through Fabio. From then on, we wanted to push for the win, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. In the end, we’re happy to take the point.

Merlin Polzin: Firstly, thanks to everybody here in Mainz and to the referee for allowing the kick-off to be delayed because of the difficulties we had getting here. The conditions weren’t ideal – the warm-up was a bit hectic and you could see that in the opening stages. It was a game with lots of duels and physical battles, exactly the tough contest we expected. In the first half, we had some good moments and created several overloads. Against Mainz’s strong defence, you have to make those situations count, and we didn’t manage to do that. Instead, we were punished with the goal just before half-time. At the break we spoke about sticking to our plan despite all the emotion, and the lads did that. The equaliser came in a slightly fortunate way with the deflected free-kick. All in all, though, it was a very solid away performance from the team. It’s far from a given to come here and play like that, so we’re pleased to take the point with us.

Urs Fischer: HSV played really good football for the first 30 minutes. We had big problems and didn’t have the control we wanted, especially in the way we pressed. From the 30th minute onwards, that changed. I thought my team did well for the remaining 60 minutes. In the end we conceded an unfortunate goal, he doesn’t strike the shot cleanly and it takes a deflection off the wall. We still had chances to make it 2–1. In the end, though, it’s another point on the board. Every point can help us and we have to accept the draw.