Harry Kane Aims to End Drought Against Struggling Mainz
Harry Kane heads to Mainz with a point to prove and a defence begging to be punished.
Bayern Munich’s trip to the Opel Arena on 7 November is more than a routine away day for the champions. It’s a test of ruthlessness. Of whether a side that let Borussia Dortmund off the hook last weekend can now put away an opponent that has been bleeding goals for fun.
Mainz on the ropes
Mainz’s season is being shredded by its own back line. Urs Fischer’s team have shipped at least three goals in three of their last four Bundesliga outings, losing all three. The numbers are brutal, but the games have felt even worse.
At home, they were dragged into a seven-goal thriller by Bayer Leverkusen and lost it 3-4. Then came Werder Bremen, another chaotic afternoon, another defeat, this time 2-3. When they tried to escape their problems on the road, SV Elversberg tore into them and sent them home on the wrong end of a 4-1 scoreline.
This isn’t a blip. It’s a pattern. Until Mainz find a way to close the gaps in front of Robin Zentner, they will keep getting hurt. And Bayern, of all sides, are the wrong visitors when confidence at the back is this low.
Fischer’s options are shrinking too. Mwene and Posch are both suspended, stripping more experience and stability out of a defence that already looks fragile. Kohr and Silas Katompa Mvumpa are also missing, with Ruoppi a doubt.
So Mainz are likely to go with a 3-5-2: Zentner behind da Costa, Gruber and Potulski; Caci and Widmer providing width; Lee, Sano and Amiri trying to knit things together in midfield; Tietz and Becker tasked with troubling a Bayern back line that, at least, has shown it can be got at.
The irony is that Mainz do usually find a way to land a punch on Bayern here. They’ve scored in each of their last eight home games against the champions, and no Bundesliga side has beaten Bayern more often since the start of 2020/21. Four wins, all in this stadium, all with the crowd right on top of the Rekordmeister.
They have history. Right now, they don’t have form. One point from four home games this season, seven home league matches without a win, three straight defeats in front of their own fans. Their matches are wild – 4.25 goals per game on average – but that chaos is killing them.
Bayern’s margin for error is gone
Bayern arrive top of the table, but only just. They had Dortmund where they wanted them in Der Klassiker, twice in front at the Allianz Arena, twice pegged back, and had to swallow a 2-2 draw that felt like a missed chance to put daylight between the two old rivals.
They sit on 18 points, level with Dortmund, ahead only on goal difference. The numbers are still imposing: 27 goals scored, the best in the league, and only eight conceded. Unbeaten in 23 Bundesliga games since a shock home defeat to Augsburg in January, and 30 away league matches without a loss since they last came unstuck on the road – here, in Mainz, in December 2024.
So there is a streak to protect, and a memory to erase.
Bayern’s midweek performance underlined their resilience. Short of several key players, they went to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League and walked away with a 0-2 win and a clean sheet. That kind of result restores authority. It also demands follow-up.
The squad, though, is thin in one key area. The champions are light in attacking midfield, with Diaz, Gnabry, Musiala and Saibari all sidelined or doubtful. That should again push Lennart Karl into the starting XI, with Brown supporting Olise and Kane in the 4-2-3-1 likely to be deployed by Niko Kovac.
Behind them, the spine remains familiar and formidable: Neuer in goal; Laimer, Upamecano, Kim and Stanisic at the back; Kimmich and Pavlovic anchoring midfield. It’s a structure built to dominate the ball and suffocate opponents. The question is whether they can maintain that control while still cutting loose in attack.
They might not need many chances. Under referee Robert Schroder, goals usually come. His 92 Bundesliga games since 2018/19 have averaged 3.50 goals. Bayern, in their 11 matches with him in charge, have rattled in 33 and won seven of them.
Kane’s drought, Mainz’s nightmare
For all the talk of Bayern’s collective form, this game carries a sharp personal edge. Harry Kane hasn’t scored in his last three appearances in all competitions. For almost any other striker, that’s a footnote. For Kane, it’s a headline.
He is not used to silence. Not like this.
A Mainz defence that has been repeatedly torn open in recent weeks is precisely the kind of backdrop against which elite forwards tend to reset their numbers. Bayern’s historical record in this fixture – 28 wins from 40 league meetings since 1995/96, 116 goals scored, an average of 2.90 per game – tells its own story. The fixture itself is usually frantic: 4.15 goals per game over that same span, with Bayern’s 8-1 demolition in March 2024 still looming large in the memory.
Mainz, though, will cling to their own set of statistics. Four home wins over Bayern since 2021. A 3-4 thriller the last time the sides met here in April 2026. The knowledge that they can, on their day, drag the champions into a firefight and come out on top.
Right now, those days feel distant. Their home form has collapsed, their defence is patched together, and they are running into a Bayern side that scores more than anyone else in the division and rarely loses on its travels.
For Bayern, this is not a night for excuses. It is a night to be clinical. For Mainz, it might be a night spent chasing red shirts and hoping that Kane’s rare quiet spell lasts just a little longer than logic suggests it will.
