Ransford Königsdörffer, who joined Mainz on a free transfer in the summer, came off the bench on Sunday and capped the rout. Philipp Mwene sent him in behind the last HSV line, he pulled away from defensive leader Sebastian Bornauw and then buried the ball past the helpless Daniel Heuer Fernandes to make it 5-0 for Mainz. Königsdörffer then sprinted away in celebration, dropped into a knee slide and gestured with his hands behind his ears towards the crowd.
That celebration, against his former club and only weeks after his departure, jolted the Volkspark awake again. Whistles and boos rained down on Königsdörffer. The HSV players reacted too. Captain Nicolai Remberg marched straight over to the Mainz huddle to confront his former team-mate.
"I like Ransi an unbelievable amount. I get on unbelievably well with him," Remberg said afterwards on DAZN. "But I am captain of this club and if someone celebrates in front of our fans, then for me that's not right, so I have to go over there. I have to say that."
Afterwards, he said he told Königsdörffer straight away that he thought his actions were "simply not correct". "He played here. Then to celebrate like that, so much and so extremely - when you then do a knee slide, maybe that's not cool either."
Getty Images
"Sometimes below the belt": Remberg sympathises with his former team-mate
Still, Remberg also showed some understanding for Königsdörffer, who came in for fierce criticism last season.
"From the outside, you had no idea how bad the abuse against him was. So maybe I shouldn't say now that I can understand him, but some of what I heard really was below the belt at times," Remberg explained. "Maybe that just came out of him there, that's how it felt to me, because afterwards he also wanted to clap hands."
Former HSV professional Sonny Kittel, who also played alongside Königsdörffer, had less sympathy. "Outrageous!" he commented on a video on DAZN's Instagram channel.
Königsdörffer himself did not comment, and both coaches tried to calm things down. "I don't want to overstate it. I don't give a shit who does whatever after a goal," said Merlin Polzin. "The lads should sort that out among themselves." Hamburg's coach added, in essence, that after a 0-5 defeat he had other issues to deal with.
Getty ImagesKönigsdörffer plays important role in promotion and survival
"Of course you shouldn't overdo it. But I think a player should be happy when he scores a goal," said Mainz coach Urs Fischer. For Remberg, a "slight aftertaste" remained on Sunday. But his personal relationship with his former team-mate would not suffer for long as a result.
Before kick-off, Königsdörffer had received a farewell gift from HSV sporting director Claus Costa for his time in Hamburg. The 24-year-old joined HSV from Dynamo Dresden in 2022 and has made 138 appearances for the Rothosen. In the 2024/25 season he played a major part in promotion, and the year before he was a regular for HSV and contributed five goals to help them stay up.