Ninth sending off against Kohr of Mainz: red is not always red

The balance sheet cannot be interpreted in its favor. With 102 yellow cards, Dominik Kohr is just eight cautions away from record holder Stefan Effenberg. And since his foul last Friday on Hoffenheim’s Max Moerstedt, which earned him a red card, he leads alone in this statistic with nine dismissals.

Cheers to all those who consider professional FSV Mainz 05 to be a vicious kicker. “Raubein”, a man with “brutal offenses”, someone who knowingly took physical harm from his opponents and had to be removed from circulation – Kohr could no longer shake this reputation.

Of course, the 31-year-old has long worked for that reputation in 316 Bundesliga games. Kohr is considered one of the most uncompromising defensemen in the league, so he took a good line, as he himself admits.

He spent most of his career in midfield, as a six. “Yellow cards are often given for tactical fouls,” he said. As a centre-back, whom he trained back a year and a half ago, “you have to be more careful, you are closer to a red card and you need a lot of tact.”

Finding a balance between when and how to join is a learning process that comes with experience. However, in Friday’s scene, he misses her.

The foul on Moerstedt, with his legs outstretched on his lower legs, was harsh and pointless. The duel that made Kohr late took place in the center circle, and there was no danger to Mainz’s goal from this scene.

The day after, 05er apologized via a detailed post on Instagram to Moerstedt who suffered abrasions and bruises.

Kohr wrote that he did not want to meet the Hoffenheim players and did not initially realize the gravity of the move. “When I saw the pictures on TV, I was shocked myself; it could have been different.”

The apology changed nothing about public judgment, including Olaf Thon’s demand on “Kicker” that Kohr be banned for up to twelve weeks.

Theoretically, the number of Kohr expulsions could have reached eleven people. Last season, the Mainz team was lucky twice as half-time attacks went unpunished.

However, the brutal, bone-breaking image begins to crack when you consider the foul that led to Kohr being sent off the field. Only three of the nine cases were red cards, only one of which – the current one – was due to a serious foul.

Otherwise, an emergency jersey brake (when Eintracht played Levin Öztunali from 05) and a slight touch of the shoulder from Freiburg’s Lukas Höler, which was also assessed as an emergency brake.

The final yellow-red card was a bad decision so far: the foul was committed by teammate Nadiem Amiri.

It’s also true that Dominik Kohr has picked up one or two yellow cards in recent months without any foul at all – perhaps simply out of suspicion due to his reputation.

For example, last season in the 3:4 win at Wolfsburg, when Jonas Wind who was running in front of him got caught in the grass with his cleats and tripped over his own feet. But Mainz will have to overcome this problem in the future.

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