How do Dortmund and Mainz stack up? | OneFootball

Borussia Dortmund vs. Mainz: How do they stack up?

Borussia Dortmund welcome a third-placed Mainz side that are unbeaten in six Bundesliga games on Sunday evening, with the hosts aiming to bounce back from successive defeats and make up ground on the European places with eight matches to go.

WANT MORE NEWS LIKE THIS? FIND MORE ARTICLES ON THE OFFICIAL BUNDESLIGA APP.

It’s been a tale of two very different seasons for these sides, with Mainz flying high under Bo Henriksen, while Dortmund continue to struggle for form under new boss Niko Kovač.

Mainz currently sit in third place, 10 points above the Black Yellows in 11th. The 05ers boast the second-best defence in the league too, having conceded just 28 goals so far, only four more than league leaders Bayern Munich. While these figures are impressive in their own right, they’re even more outstanding when compared to Mainz’s tally of 19 points at this same stage last season, when they’d conceded 46 goals – exactly double their current record!

They haven’t just improved at the back either, as they've also doubled the number of goals scored from the same point in the 2023/24 campaign. The 05ers have netted 44 goals this season, with 21 of those coming from Germany internationals Jonathan Burkardt and Nadiem Amiri.

It’s almost been a season of redemption for both of them; Burkardt has hit a career-high 15 goals already, also becoming Mainz’s all-time top scorer in the Bundesliga, while Amiri’s star has continued to shine in that Mainz midfield, so brightly in fact, that he earned a return to the Germany team for the first time in over four years for the UEFA Nations League quarter-finals in March.

Just behind Burkardt in the scoring charts is Serhou Guirassy, on 14 goals for Dortmund at the moment. He currently sits sixth in the Bundesliga scoring charts, and second on the Champions League leaderboard having fired in 10 goals in the competition. It’s not just Guirassy that has impressed in Europe though, with Dortmund currently awaiting a quarter-final clash with Barcelona having won seven of their 12 games on the continent.

The Black-and-Yellows have been unable to carry this form into the Bundesliga, however, and have picked up just 10 points in the league in 2025, while Mainz have earned 20 in the same period. Kovač's men come into this game having lost two on the bounce (1-0 vs. Augsburg and 2-0 vs. RB Leipzig) and with four losses from six under their new boss. Mainz meanwhile, are unbeaten in their last six, winning four and drawing two.

While history dictates that Dortmund will pick up a result, with the 05ers having never won both games against them in a single season, this is no ordinary campaign for Sunday's visitors. Likewise, it’s been an out-of-sorts season for BVB, who have the most losses post winter break (seven) of any other side and have been unable to build on impressive victories over Union Berlin (6-0) and St. Pauli (2-0). They’re currently on track for their lowest finish since the 2014/15 season, when they came seventh. The last time they finished in the bottom half of the table, however, was in 2007/08, when they ended the season in 13th.

At that point in history, soon-to-be title winner with Dortmund, Neven Subotić, was on the books of Mainz who had finished fourth in Bundesliga 2. Future Bundesliga coaches Bo Svensson and Marco Rose were in that very same squad, with Rose going on to manage Dortmund in the 2020/21 season. Of course, coaching legends also link the clubs as the places where Jürgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel made their names.

Back to the current day, where both teams have plenty to play for, most important of which is European football. A return to form for Dortmund could see them sneak into the Europa League or Conference League places, while Mainz will aim to create history and qualify for the Champions League for the first time in their history.

LIKED THE ARTICLE? FIND MORE ARTICLES ON THE OFFICIAL BUNDESLIGA APP.