2nd Bundesliga: League leaders St. Pauli defeat Braunschweig when they are outnumbered

FC St. Pauli got back on track in the 2nd league a week after their first defeat of the season. Against Eintracht Braunschweig, Hamburg won a hard-fought northern duel 1-0 (1-0) at Millerntor on Sunday and consolidated their lead in the table.

Coach Fabian Hürzeler’s team had a difficult time against the well-organized “Lions” throughout the entire game. The Lower Saxony team played a strong away game, were very compact and even had better chances to score after counterattacks and standard situations.

Scherning was correspondingly disappointed when he told ARD radio: “It’s bitter that we don’t take anything with us.” However, he also admitted “that we couldn’t exert the pressure as we had imagined with one more man.” Eintracht defender Ermin Bicakcic was also frustrated: “We have to create a lot more chances, make a lot more noise in the box.”

Saad flies and is missing against Kiel

But at the end of a week that, after the 1-0 defeat in Magdeburg, was characterized by discussions about the training camp in Mallorca and Hürzeler’s still unclear contract situation, St. Pauli fought for success with patience and efficiency: Oladapo Afolayan scored after an unsuccessful defensive action by BTSV defender Robert Ivanov (32nd) scored the goal of the day.

“A 1-0 like this can feel nice,” said Hürzeler at the Sportschau microphone, “because we were very compact in the game and therefore deserved to win in the end.” A small downer from Hamburg’s perspective: Elias Saad was shown a yellow-red card (67th) for repeated foul play and will miss the top game at Holstein Kiel next Friday (6.30 p.m., in the NDR Livecenter).

St. Pauli consolidates Leading the table

With the twelfth win of the season and now 45 points, the FCSP is three points ahead of the “storks” in the table, who won 4-0 in Paderborn on Saturday – and now seven points ahead of city rivals HSV, who lost in game one after the elimination of Coach Tim Walter only played 2-2 at Hansa Rostock. Defense chief Eric Smith said after the game: “It’s a great feeling to win such a close game. We’re happy about the win and the clean sheet that we really wanted to keep.”

Due to the defeat, Braunschweig missed out on gaining further breathing room in the bottom of the table, but still held on to 15th place thanks to Kaiserslautern’s 1-1 draw in Nuremberg. “It’s obviously bitter that we don’t get anything with us here,” said BTSV coach Scherning the good performance of his team. However, the coach complained that “we didn’t exert the pressure in the majority as we had imagined.”

St. Pauli with a lot of possession, Braunschweig more dangerous

The hosts were superior in the first half and moved the game to Braunschweig’s half. However, they found it difficult to pull apart BTSV’s compact defense and get behind the defensive line and into the gaps.

The first big chance came from the first corner of the game. But the guests had them: Thorir Helgason, however, missed a free-standing shot in front of Nikola Vasilj (23′).

Afolayan scores, Vasilj saves against Ivanov

St. Pauli had around 70 percent of the ball in the first half and didn’t know what to do with it for a long time – and yet they took the lead with their first shot: Ivanov cleared a sharp cross from Marcel Hartel right at the feet of Afolayan, who ran through the legs of Ermin Bicakcic scored to make it 1-0 (32′).

Five minutes later, the Hürzeler team increased in almost the same way: Anton Donkor headed into the center, where St. Pauli captain Jackson Irvine, who was back on the pitch for the first time since the Asian Cup with Australia, but the shot slipped. And that almost took revenge on the other side: Ivanov was denied from close range by Vasilj, who reacted strongly (39′).

BTSV better and in the majority, but St. Pauli’s defense holds

The FCSP goalkeeper was also the focus after the restart: in the 55th minute he cleared a corner against Hasan Kurucay, and a little later with a strong save against Fabio Kaufmann (58th). A goal would certainly have been checked due to a possible offside position of the attacking midfielder. On the other side, Hauke ​​Wahl hit the crossbar after a corner (65′).

That didn’t change the general picture of the second half: the guests were the better team – and two minutes later they were in the majority. Saad had to leave the field after a foul on Bicakcic. But the majority was not good for Eintracht. St. Pauli defended strongly going forward and suddenly kept the guests further away from their own goal.

And the Braunschweigers played their way through, the last passes and crosses were too imprecise. And so it remained with St. Pauli’s hard-fought, but even more frenetic, 12th win of the season at the Millerntor.

Match statistics FC St. Pauli – Eintracht Braunschweig

Matchday 22, February 18, 2024 1:30 p.m

Gates:

FC St. Pauli: Vasilj – Wahl, Smith, Mets – Saliakas (83rd Ritzka), Irvine, Hartel (90th+3 Boukhalfa), Treu – Afolayan (83rd Kemlein), J. Eggestein (69th Metcalfe), Saad
Eintracht Braunschweig: Casali – Ivanov (79th Ujah), Bicakcic, Kurucay – Rittmüller, Tauer (73rd Finndell), Donkor (79th Lucoqui), F. Kaufmann, Helgason – Gómez (69th F. Krüger), Philippe (69th S. Sane)

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Sports current | 02/18/2024 | 4:17 p.m