Mainz's slow start

Perhaps Mainz 05's awful August will prove a blessing in disguise by the season's end in May. The Bundesliga's surprise European competitors in the 2013/14 season, Freiburg and Frankfurt, both struggled to cope with the stresses of fighting on three fronts. New Mainz coach Kasper Hjulmand has put that particular discussion to bed before the Bundesliga campaign even starts, albeit in rather ignominious fashion.

"We played a good game up until we made it 2-0. After that we had big problems at the back," Hjulmand said after bowing out of the German Cup on Friday.

Considering that Mainz shipped five goals to third-division Chemnitzer FC in just 70 minutes of football, before losing on penalties, perhaps the German press corps could add "adept at understatement" to a burgeoning file of notes on the Bundesliga coaching newcomer from Denmark.

This followed perhaps an even more painful failure for the faithful, as Mainz threw away a first-leg lead to lose their Europa League qualifier against Greek side Asteras Trioplis.

At Mainz, Hjulmand faces a task as daunting as it is enviable. While his predecessor Thomas Tuchel left behind solid foundations, Hjulmand will also have to handle some rather inflated expectations.

Big shoes to fill

During Tuchel's five-year tenure, FSV Mainz 05 scored a remarkable 239 Bundesliga points, making the "Null Fünfers" Germany's fifth-best league team in that period: only Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke fared better. Renowned as a tactically astute trainer able to think outside the box, Tuchel achieved this sustained success despite one of the Bundesliga's more modest budgets.

After leading Mainz to sixth place in the Bundesliga last season, Tuchel asked to be released from his contract - valid until the end of this season. The club agreed, no doubt with a heavy heart, and later picked out little-known Dane Hjulmand to replace him.

"Mainz has a lot to thank Thomas Tuchel for," the club's commercial manager Christian Heidel said in the off-season. "They were the most successful years in our history, with an outstanding coach."

Yet supporters can take heart, Tuchel was an entirely unknown entity on taking charge at Mainz - rather like his predecessor, a likeable if unremarkable second division playing stalwart by the name of Jürgen Klopp. The Null Fünfers have a habit of spotting talent for the dugout, not just for the pitch.

A "selling club"

Hjulmand's next major challenge, having bedded in on the River Rhine after his move from Danish club FC Nordsjaelland, will be to overcome the departures of some key players in the off-season.

Hamburg poached attacking livewire Nicolai Müller for the better part of 5 million euros ($6.7 million). Ever forward-thinking, Mainz made the tough decision of allowing veteran Zdenek Pospech's contract to expire, while young striker Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting refused to sign an extension - sensing his time had come for a move- and landed at Schalke. Müller and Choupo-Moting scored a combined 29 Bundesliga goals last season; only Japanese international Shinji Okazaki - now basically the star of a cast of one in Mainz's attack - found the net more frequently for Mainz. In Pospech, Mainz will miss a veteran defender who started every single league game bar one last season without picking up a single yellow or red card.

Yet for clubs like Mainz, player turnover is a cost of doing business. Last summer, Schalke bought top-scorer Adam Szalai while Bayern Munich poached promising defensive all-rounder Jan Kirchhoff. The club's most successful recent export is surely German international Andre Schürrle, now at Chelsea: He enjoyed his breakout season at the Coface Arena under Tuchel, earning a move to Bayer Leverkusen en route to Jose Mourinho's London club.

Perilously placed, but packed with potential

After five years of consistently raking in healthy Bundesliga prize monies alongside these transfer fees, the club is now spending like never before. Barely six months after Heidel and Tuchel spent a club record fee, reported at 5 million euros, for South Korea's captain Koo Ja-cheol, Mainz have not slept during the summer transfer window. Serb international loanee Filip Duricic is a highly regarded talent aged 22, and Mainz have secured a right to purchase at the end of the season should the Benfica man impress. Experienced Chilean international Gonzalo Jara could prove a crucial off-season purchase, not least because it will likely fall to him to step into Pospech's old position at right-back.

Predicting Mainz's prospects for the coming season is a perilous business. On the one hand, teams from Greece and the German third division just embarrassed the club and new coach in two potentially lucrative competitions. Although versatile, the squad is comparatively thin and inexperienced, seeking to cope with the loss of a beloved and successful coach.

Then again, Tuchel has left behind solid foundations for the future. Goalkeeper Loris Karius, 21, and 20-year-old playmaker Johannes Geis look like superstars in waiting; defender Stefan Bell and midfielder Yunus Malli, both just 22, also ooze potential. Even slightly older members of the side like Koo Ja-cheol (25), Christoph Moritz (24), or even Shinji Okazaki (28) might continue to bloom, having spent crucial developmental years out of the first-team picture at larger clubs.

One of the biggest pre-season concerns for Mainz - namely coping with the rigors of extra cup matches at home and on the continent with a small squad - is now a thing of the past. Having never progressed past the qualifying rounds for European competitions, and having never lifted the German Cup, Mainz's fans would surely have preferred to at least try their luck competing on three fronts for a little while. Now they, and new coach Hjulmand, will instead have a single focus: the Bundesliga. Three points in the season-opener away to newly promoted SC Paderborn on August 24 is not an unrealistic demand, especially after double disappointment.