Augsburg’s Sandro Wagner stumbles through press conference after humiliating home defeat | OneFootball

Augsburg’s Bundesliga experiment with Sandro Wagner suddenly finds itself in deep trouble. The popular German head coach finds himself less popular with club supporters after his team a humiliating 1-4 home loss to Mainz 05 at the WWK-Arena on Saturday afternoon. With just three points from four league fixtures, Augsburg face sliding into the relegation zone before the weekend is out.

Wagner’s Fuggerstädter turned in an absolutely wretched first half against the visiting Rheinhessen. Down 0-2 in the 53rd-minute, Wagner’s charges were gifted a chance to turn things around when Mainz defender Dominik Kohr was sent off on double yellows. Mainz compounded the embarrassment by scoring two shorthanded goals, both of them assisted by defensive midfielder Kaishu Sano.

At a press conference on Friday, Wagner promised journalists that there would be no repeat of an incident last weekend against FC St. Pauli when he drew a yellow card for kicking a ball into play in frustration at the end of the first half. Wagner got off lightly. The Bundesliga’s updated 2025/26 rulebook clearly stipulates that a coach who kicks a ball back into play must be ejected on a straight red.

“I am a fundamentally emotional 37-year-old who has only coached three Bundesliga games,” Wagner said on Friday. “I want to improve, but also continue to get the most out of my team. I don’t want to hurt anyone and I will calm down. I promise!”

Watching Wagner try and control his emotions on the sidelines Saturday, it became abundantly clear that the former DFB assistant wished he had never made that promise. Wagner himself could have done without some heated emotional comments made following the Bayern match earlier this season, not to mention new acquisition Fabian Rieder’s contention that Augsburg professionals “needed to be bigger assholes”.

Wagner kept it as cool as possible at the post-match press conference.

“We put in a lot of hard work in order to bag our first home win of the season,” Wagner remarked. “First and foremost I’d like to apologize to the spectators who showed up today. I take my responsibility to deliver lovely afternoons of football to the staff and fans here very seriously. As I didn’t succeed in doing that today, it hurts me deeply.

“The last thing I want to do is point the finger at the players,” Wagner continued. “I promised the fans and everyone something before the season. When we win, the players will get all the credit. It’s nothing to do with me. When we lose, I’ll take responsibility for it. Of course, I don’t construct the plan myself. We come up with the plan together as a team with the players.

“As I’ve been mentioning this week, however,” Wagner concluded. “We’re missing the basics. We need to get those down first. From there, we can make things more complex. But, when we don’t have that, it won’t function. That’s for me the biggest takeaway from today. First, we need to get back to the simple stuff before we can show our quality on the pitch.“

GGFN | Peter Weis