Bundesliga on Wednesday
After debacle against Bayern: Wolfsburg wins basement duel
Updated on January 14, 2026 – 8:57 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Three days after their Bundesliga record defeat, VfL Wolfsburg had to play against St. Pauli. The Wolves managed a late break in the relegation battle against Hamburg.
After the bitter blow at Bayern Munich, VfL Wolfsburg has struggled to get back on track in the Bundesliga. Just three days after the embarrassment at the German record champions (1:8), coach Daniel Bauer’s team made amends with a 2:1 (1:1) win against FC St. Pauli, at least in terms of the result.
Christian Eriksen (25th, hand penalty according to video evidence) and Dzenan Pejcinovic (88th) gave the Wolves a small cushion in the bottom half of the table. It was only on Sunday that VfL suffered the worst Bundesliga defeat in the club’s history in Munich. With the win against relegation-threatened Hamburg, Wolfsburg can breathe a sigh of relief with 18 points, at least for the time being.
For St. Pauli, however, the situation in the relegation battle in 17th place (twelve points) is becoming increasingly precarious, and Eric Smith’s goal (40th) didn’t change that – after all: Due to the snow chaos last weekend, coach Alexander Blessin’s team played one less game than their direct competitors.
In advance, Bauer had emphasized that he wanted to “make positive headlines” again against St. Pauli. To do this, the 43-year-old relied on Aaron Zehnter and Yannick Gerhardt, who replaced Kilian Fischer and Mattias Svanberg in the starting eleven compared to the Bayern game. However, Pejcinovic missed the first good opportunity right from the start, and keeper Nikola Vasilj parried easily (4th). Overall, Wolfsburg were active and increasingly took control of the game.
After the duel with RB Leipzig was canceled due to weather, the Hamburg team, who were missing captain Jackson Irvine, who was again injured, also contributed to a lively start to the new year in the VW Arena – a powerful shot from Mathias Pereira Lage just narrowly missed the goal (18th).