When the word "foster father" is mentioned, Bo Svensson sinks back in his chair, spreads his arms and looks up as if expecting heavenly assistance. No, the FSV Mainz 05 coach did not use the term that his colleague from the tabloid is trying to put into his mouth when he spoke about his relationship with Thomas Tuchel. "He was a formative person for me," he repeats. But not a foster father.

Svensson was 30 years old and a seasoned central defender when the two began their career together, Tuchel six years older and had just been surprisingly promoted to head coach at Bruchweg. That was the start of one of the most successful phases of the Bundesliga club in the summer of 2009. Five years later, Svensson ended his active career with much applause, while Tuchel made an undignified farewell to Mainz - a year before the expiry of his contract, he announced that he would no longer appear at his workplace. He kept his word.

It's hard to imagine that Svensson could behave in a similar way. When he says that he has learned a lot from Tuchel, both athletically and personally - he had already emphasized when he started work in January 2021: "I'd be pretty stupid if I hadn't taken anything away from that time" - this refers on the one hand to his meticulous work. "There was very, very much content," says Svensson, adding that he had never seen a coach who worked so the details, who always strived to make his team even better. "His level of ambition is very high, he is not satisfied with the here and now."

100 appearances under Tuchel

As a person, Tuchel gave him a few things "that made me think" - all in all, the cooperation on the pitch and the conversations outside had awakened in him the drive to also pursue a coaching career. "For every human being, there are three, four, five others on their path that shape them. For me, Thomas is one of them."

The defender Svensson had made exactly 100 appearances under Tuchel, the second season with 21 points from the first seven matchdays and qualification for the Europa League as fifth in the table, was the outstanding. A total of three victories over FC Bayern also occurred during this period.

This Saturday (15.30 CET in the F.A.Z. live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky), the Dane and his former coach, with whom he is still in contact and whom he has visited at some later stations, will meet for the first time as opponents. "Of course, that's something special," says Svensson, but dealing with it is no different than in past encounters with former teammates or fellow coaches such as Marco Rose or Sandro Schwarz: During the 90 minutes, everyone is about coaching their own team to victory.

Whether it is more to Mainz's advantage or disadvantage that Bayern said goodbye to the Champions League on Wednesday and thus had to write off the second title of the desired treble within a very short time under Tuchel, who succeeded Julian Nagelsmann, is a question to which Svensson does not know the answer. What he knows is that his team will have to do much better than in the first duels with Munich this season. As a reminder, they lost 2-6 in the first half of the season and 0-4 at home in the DFB-Pokal.

"That was an atypical and disappointing game," said central defender Stefan Bell, especially after the previous Bundesliga games, in which his team had acted forcefully and courageously. "The nature of the departure bothered us more than the departure itself. But you've also seen that Bayern can deliver when it matters."