Mainz vs FC Augsburg Prediction, Odds, Best Bets - Bundesliga

Twelfth-placed Mainz, winless at home all season yet beaten only once in four away matches, visit fourteenth-placed FC Augsburg at WWK Arena, where Augsburg have lost just once in five league matches and sit a single point behind their guests.

The Matchup

Bundesliga Matchday 10 brings Mainz to WWK Arena on Sunday for a meeting of two bottom-half clubs separated by a single point. Mainz are twelfth on 10 points with a 3-1-5 record. Augsburg are fourteenth on 9 points at 2-3-4, and the pair of them score and concede at almost the same rate. Mainz have 18 goals scored and 19 conceded in nine matches. Augsburg have 20 scored and 20 conceded. The table says there is nothing between them. The splits say the game depends entirely on where it is played.

Mainz are the strangest travellers in the division. They have not won a home league match all season, losing four of five in front of their own supporters, yet away from home they are 3-0-1 with 11 goals scored and 7 conceded. They won 5-0 at Hamburg SV, 4-3 at Borussia Mönchengladbach and 1-0 at Schalke 04. The catch is who those wins came against. Schalke sit seventeenth and Mönchengladbach eighteenth, and the one away match Mainz played against a side in the top half finished in a 4-1 defeat at SV Elversberg.

Augsburg's home record is the mirror image. They have lost once in five league matches at WWK Arena, beating Schalke 04 3-0 and drawing 2-2 with both Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich, and they concede 1.40 goals per home match against 2.22 per match across the season. Michael Gregoritsch leads the side with 5 goals in eight matches and a team-high 22 shots, Fabian Rieder has 2 goals and a team-high 5 assists in nine, and Robin Fellhauer has 3 goals in nine. Finn Dahmen has made 35 saves behind them.

Mainz carry a real threat of their own. Phillip Tietz has 6 goals in nine matches and a team-high 31 shots, Sheraldo Becker has 2 goals and a team-high 4 assists, and Anthony Caci has added 3 goals and 3 assists from wing-back. Neither club has named its side yet.

Augsburg are expected to stay with the side that started at RB Leipzig, Dahmen in goal behind Jeffrey Gouweleeuw, Chrislain Matsima and Yannik Keitel, with Rieder, Fellhauer, Arijon Ibrahimovic and Anton Kade expected to start further forward, and Gregoritsch was an unused substitute in that match. Mainz are expected to keep the side that faced Bayern Munich, Robin Zentner in goal, Nadiem Amiri and Kaishu Sano in midfield, Caci and Silvan Widmer wide, and Becker expected to start up front, with Tietz having come off the bench in that match.

Key Factors

Recent form cuts against the visitors more than their away record suggests. Mainz have lost four of their last five league matches, conceding 13 goals in that run, including a 4-3 home defeat to Bayer Leverkusen, a 3-2 home defeat to Werder Bremen and the 4-1 loss at SV Elversberg. Augsburg have lost three of their last five and conceded 14, a run that includes a 5-2 defeat at RB Leipzig and a 4-3 defeat at Elversberg, but two of their last five came at home, where their defensive numbers hold up far better than their travelling ones.

The honest counterpoint is that Mainz's away scoring is not a mirage built on one afternoon. They have scored in every away match this season, 11 goals in four games is a genuine return, and Augsburg's own last five show a side that can be pulled apart, as Leipzig showed in the 5-2 win on November 7.

If Tietz gets service early and Mainz score first, Augsburg will have to chase a game in a way that has not suited them, and a Mainz side comfortable on the counter can pick them off. That is the version of this match that beats the pick.

Both clubs last played on November 7, so both arrive with 15 days of rest and no tired-legs excuse either way. What is at stake is plain. A single point separates Mainz in twelfth from Augsburg in fourteenth, with 1. FC Union Berlin sixteenth on 7 points in the relegation play-off place, and the loser here spends the next week looking down at the bottom three instead of up at mid-table. Expect a direct, physical game between two sides that would rather win it ugly than lose it pretty.

Every pick is published with its line before the game. Odds via consensus sportsbooks at time of writing and move constantly. Must be 21+. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.