Perisic poked the ball through the legs of Karius but the young German was lucky there were no other Wolves lurking to pounce on his error before he could gather at the second time of asking. Karius made yet another mistake minutes later as he appeared to fumble Olic's header over the line. Despite some valid protests from Wolfsburg the referee and his assistants didn't award the goal and waved play on.
Naldo broke the deadlock with a bullet header from a de Bruyne corner after fifteen minutes. There was absolutely no disputing this wasn't a goal as the ball almost took the net off. Mainz top scorer Okazaki tried his luck from range with no success and Djuricic wriggled costless of his man before trying a shot himself for Mainz which was superbly saved by the legs of Benaglio.
The Wolves were evidently hungry for another goal and spurned a number of good opportunities in the remainder of the half. Midfielder, Luiz Gustavo came closest on two occasions shooting across goal and beating both Karius and the far post. Wolfsburg were deservedly ahead at the half and were by far the better of the two sides at the Volkswagen arena.
A lovely pass from Caliguiri set up de Bruyne but Karius made a strong save and start to the second half. Seconds later, Karius got his finger tips to Olic's curling effort. Allagui dragged one narrowly wide for the opposition as play switched up the other end before Karius denied de Bruyne again who got on the end of a superb diagonal ball which acted as a clearance.
The hosts doubled their lead on the hour mark as Perisic headed in Naldo's initial header from Schäfer's corner for the second time of the match. Wolfsburg's second caused Mainz manager, Kasper Hjumland into making a very strange and rare triple substitution. Maxi Arnold came close to making it three for Wolfsburg but Karius denied the second half substitute with his legs.
Geis stung the hands of Benaglio in the Wolfsburg net with a well struck costless kick from outside the box but Allagui couldn't get enough on the follow up as he slid in. Arnold got in behind his marker for the second time and beat Karius with his shot before the ball cannoned back off of the far right post and back into play to be cleared. Allagui then darted through but was unable to beat the quickly on-rushing Benaglio who left his line very early.
The Mainz defenders had lots to thank Karius for again as the keeper palmed Olic's effort of the bar which came as a result of some quite comical marking by the visitors. Fresh-legged, Junior Malanda teed up Caliguiri who had the easy job of tapping into an empty net to give the hosts the third of the fixture and secured maximum points in the dying minutes.