Every little detail of it suggested it would almost immediately find its way into the annals of legend. It started as a last-ditch attempt from a set piece, in the fourth of five minutes of stoppage time, with the clock ticking towards the climax at seemingly twice its normal pace and the goalkeeper Mio Backhaus wandering up for the corner in desperation rather than genuine hope of his Anatoliy Trubin moment.

It was pinball; Marco Grüll’s delivery was headed out, nodded back towards goal by Isaac Schmidt and heading out for a goal-kick, only for Senne Lynen to stretch and just about keep it in, slicing it up in the air, before it fell to Keke Topp. It felt as if the 21-year-old’s sublime finish had been cut and pasted from a different sequence entirely, a sumptuous left-foot volley on the swivel that arrowed past Borussia Mönchengladbach’s goalkeeper, Moritz Nicolas, hitting the net and lifting the roof off. Werder Bremen’s equaliser felt like a near-miracle. On a day and in a minute that looked like it would inevitably be their coach’s last, they had finally, improbably coaxed the sound of the ship horn and The Proclaimers’ “500 Miles” from the Weserstadion’s speakers with a goal to snatch a point at the last.

It still wasn’t enough for Horst Steffen. At 9.45am on Sunday morning the sporting directorm, Clemens Fritz, a veteran of considerably more successful Werder teams as a player, entered the Weser dressing room to tell the players that Steffen’s reign was over. Firing a coach with hours rather than days to go before transfer deadline is far from ideal, although in Werder’s case there is hardly a bottomless bucket of euros to fund an impromptu squad makeover. But even with Saturday’s timing, even with Topp’s heroics, Bremen’s board felt forced to act.

If the moment of Topp’s goal felt special, a crescendo that should have been a rescue act, a great escape, the reality was that there was nothing left to save. The goal may yet prove decisive in the part of the season yet to unfold, keeping Werder two points behind Gladbach rather than five at an increasingly congested lower part of the table, but it was the absolute bare minimum and it didn’t end the team’s – or the club’s – current run of torment. Failing to beat Gladbach stretched Werder’s winless run to 10. The new coach, an “external solution” that Fritz hopes to appoint imminently from a list of few already identified candidates that we assume doesn’t contain Felix Magath (who jauntily and publicly put himself forward on Monday morning), will inherit a team in 15th position, though Topp’s equaliser at least assured Werder are not in the relegation playoff place of third bottom.

That the name of Thomas Schaaf came up in whispers as a potential saviour tells you everything you need to know about the current predicament in Bremen. Schaaf was part of some of Werder’s greatest moments, both as a player (winning the Bundesliga twice) and coach (he was at the helm for 2004’s historic double-winning season). He is now 64 and has not coached full-time in nearly a decade since leaving Hannover.

Schaaf was brought back for the final game of 2020/21 as a Hail Mary, replacing Florian Kohfeldt and unable to prevent relegation in that single match, a home defeat to Gladbach that represented an indignity that he shouldn’t have been put through. He now coaches Bremen’s legends team, and surely won’t be dragged back into this.

Yet the mention of Schaaf tells you that Werder haven’t moved on in the last decade. Instead of rubbing shoulders with Borussia Dortmund and Stuttgart, it’s now Mainz and Augsburg. What’s more is that having been in dire straits before Christmas, Mainz are rolling. Urs Fischer’s team came from behind to win at RB Leipzig on Saturday, their second straight win and third in four, sealed by Silas Katompa Mvumpa’s brilliant solo goal, a player on the comeback trail propelling a team on the same trajectory.

The story of Silas is an extraordinary one, of a shooting star derailed by serious injury and as the victim of identity theft (by a former agent), who was nevertheless banned by the DFB for his role in falsifying his records. Last season he won the double with Red Star Belgrade while out on loan and played in the Champions League. Now, at 27, Silas is back in the Bundesliga and needed more than ever; on Saturday, he came on as an early substitute for Benedict Hollerbach, who suffered a serious achilles injury and was stretchered off in some distress. For a team struggling for goals post-Jonathan Burkardt and with the hours dissipating to deadline, it was a huge blow. Then Silas pulled his rabbit from the hat to lift Mainz to 16th.

It was a Saturday afternoon to dizzy the senses, simultaneously bringing clarity and muddying the waters at the bottom. Augsburg followed up last week’s extraordinary win at Bayern by winning a game they really had to, at home to St Pauli, with a pair of Michael Gregoritsch goals, and unbelievably Hamburg conjured the performance of their season to hold Bayern Munich, with the increasingly iconic Luka Vuskovic heading in their leveller in a thrilling game. If the bottom two of St Pauli and Heidenheim look increasingly cut off, the throng above them is crowded, which must have been pivotal in urging Fritz and company to move forward at Werder.

Not everything could or should be heaped on Steffen, which is a vital lesson vital to learn if they are to react. An ambitious summer in terms of transfers hasn’t worked out with Victor Boniface not fit enough to play (and his season now ended by surgery), Cameron Puertas yet to contribute a Bundesliga goal or assist, and dwindling returns from Samuel Mbangula after a solid start. An external solution, then, to deal with a situation brought to a head by external factors. It has long since been time for Werder to wake up.

Talking points

• So a second successive Bayern failure to win has, in combination with a thoroughly unconvincing 3-2 Dortmund win over bottom-placed Heidenheim in Sunday’s late game, reintroduced the merest suggestion of a title race to the season’s lexicon, with the gap at the top reduced to six points.

• “As BVB, we need to start telling the fans we want to be champions,” the captain, Nico Schlotterbeck, trumpeted, apparently not having seen much of the game he had just played in. “The lads and I want to go for it.” One thing in Dortmund’s favour is that Bayern face Hoffenheim on Sunday, and Christian Ilzer’s side are third after sweeping aside Union Berlin for a fifth straight win. Dortmund could have cut the gap to three by then if things go to form on Saturday when they visit Wolfsburg, who were poor in Friday night’s loss at injury-hit Cologne.

• The top four race is becoming clearer. Ermedin Demirovic’s spectacular late winner for Stuttgart meant Bayer Leverkusen only stayed in touch with the top four rather than closed the gap with their win at Eintracht Frankfurt (who have appointed Albert Riera as their new coach) – and Freiburg being Stuttgart’s victims also cut off the top six from the rest, with an eight-point gulf now between Leverkusen and Freiburg, with the 2024 champions also having a game in hand.