"I've never seen anything like this in 16 years": Bundesliga player flees to the toilet during a European cup match

"I tried to tell the manager that I really needed to come off. Because I realised I had to go to the loo straight away. But the manager didn’t quite get it, so I had to take the initiative myself," said the defender.

Whilst Mainz were celebrating Armindo Sieb’s goal to make it 2-0 in the 85th minute, da Costa sprinted past the bewildered substitutes’ bench and his coach into the tunnel: “This is my 16th year in professional football, but I’ve honestly never experienced anything like this before – it’s absolutely mad.”

In the end, Fischer had to react to avoid finishing the match with ten men, bringing on Kacper Potulski for the final few minutes in place of the absent da Costa. Afterwards, the 05 coach explained that he hadn’t quite known how to handle the situation at first.

“I only realised what was happening when he sprinted past me. At first I didn’t know what was going on. But he was probably already having cramps… It was a bit funny, partly because he wanted to go back onto the pitch when he came back from the toilet. But by then we’d already made the substitution. Da Costa hadn’t realised that, though,” laughed Fischer.