The hosts could ill-afford a poor start on such an important day, yet they were slow off the mark and were almost punished when Jonathan Burkardt – who has scored a brace in both of his previous two H2H appearances – saw his shot take a wicked deflection and force Timo Horn into a save inside 30 seconds.
An opening goal for Heidenheim elsewhere meant that not even a win would save Bochum, but their blunt attacking play always made such an outcome unlikely. Instead, they were hanging on inside the opening 10 minutes, with centre-back Ivan Ordets scrambling onto the goalline to head Phillipp Mwene’s curling effort to safety.
Bochum stabilised from there, but numerous promising openings came and went without a clear-cut chance being created, and deep into first-half stoppage time, they were finally punished.
Nadiem Amiri lined up a free-kick from 25 yards and placed the ball perfectly into the top corner beyond the reach of a despairing Horn.
With time running out on their top-flight future, Bochum made a triple change at the break in the hopes of igniting a comeback. Unfortunately for the home fans, that failed to make an impact as Mainz remained on top, with Horn making a good save to deny Paul Nebel before the 05ers doubled their lead on 54 minutes.
An exquisite backheel from Burkardt sliced the Bochum defence open, allowing Lee Jae-sung to find Mwene at the back post, who applied the finishing touch for his first goal since April 2024.
An anti-climactic afternoon for the vociferous home crowd got even worse when Burkardt beautifully swept home his 17th Bundesliga goal of the season.
Gerrit Holtmann grabbed a late consolation for Bochum, but any faint smiles were wiped off the home fans’ faces when Nebel swept home a sumptuous volley for the visitors’ fourth, as they emphatically ended their own seven-match winless run to retake their place inside the top six.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Paul Nebel (Mainz)
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