FC St. Pauli drew goalless from Hannover 96 in the top second division game at Millerntor. With the draw, Hamburg missed their fifth home win in a row. The northern duel was overshadowed by a commotion in the guest block.
In a highly intense duel, the front-runners were the better team, but despite their sometimes oppressive dominance, they failed to score the decisive goal. After all: Coach Fabian Hürzeler’s team is still undefeated and has kept a direct opponent, Hanover, at bay for promotion. Although the Lower Saxony team defended in a disciplined manner, they did not manage to get a shot on the hosts’ goal throughout the entire game.
The game at Millerntor was overshadowed by a minute-long interruption ten minutes before the end when there was commotion in the visitors’ block and police forces had objects thrown at them. At times there were violent fights and throwing of cups and poles. The police used pepper spray and batons. The 96 supporters then took down their banners and stopped supporting them.
According to police reports, internal disputes among away fans triggered the riots. Be a guest fan “Several times hit to the ground by attacks from our own fans” gone, the Hamburg police said after the game at X. The St. Pauli Fan Aid criticized the police’s temporary deployment in the fan block “inappropriate and disproportionate”. Police said they went to the block to “To prevent worse things from happening”. The emergency services were then massively attacked.
“Hannover didn’t allow itself to be lured as much as we would have liked.”
— St. Paulis midfielder Marcel Hartel
96 captain Ron-Robert Zieler was happy with the point in the end: “St. Pauli really plays good ball. But we held up well and fought to make it 0-0.” St. Pauli’s midfielder Marcel Hartel, on the other hand, was disappointed after the game because “we wanted to do more.” Although his team was “very dominant”, “Hannover didn’t allow itself to be lured as much as we would have liked.” He also criticized the lack of consistency in attack compared to recent games.
Both teams started the game extremely focused: Hannover tried to enforce their high pressing and force high ball wins, St. Pauli tried to use their positioning and passing play to free themselves and create chances. With their intense duels, both teams initially neutralized each other, and scenes in the penalty area remained rare in the first quarter of an hour.
In the 16th minute, however, the hosts almost took the lead: Philipp Treu and Elias Saad combined strongly on the left side, Saad fed Johannes Eggestein in the middle, who turned at lightning speed and finished. 96 goalkeeper Zieler made a strong save.
St. Pauli cheers – but only briefly
St. Pauli was now dominant, let the ball and opponents run and scored the supposed 1-0. However, Saad’s powerful goal was preceded by an offside position from cross-giver Oladapo Afolayan (23′). Although the Lower Saxony team continued to consistently block the spaces, they hardly got out of their own half in this phase – also because small inaccuracies kept creeping into their own game that prevented an orderly build-up of the game in the final third.
And once they succeeded, the brown-whites countered extremely dangerously: Saad broke through to the left, moved inside and just missed the goal with his right-footed shot (36th). Two minutes later, Manolis Saliakas missed the long overdue lead after a sharp cross from Saad. It went into the locker room goalless.
Intense duels in midfield
The first quarter of an hour after the restart was again a reflection of the first 15 minutes of the game: a highly intense duel between two tactically very disciplined teams who diligently shifted and condensed spaces and otherwise got caught up in duels in midfield. Scenes in the penalty area, let alone scoring chances? None.
So it took a standard situation for there to be a hint of goal danger again: Phil Neumann, however, blocked Eggestein’s header after a corner (65′). And Hanover? Concentrated on defending and continued to do nothing going forward. Even after 75 minutes, the “Reds” didn’t have a single attempt at scoring.
Interruption after commotion in the guest block
That changed in the 78th minute when a deflected shot from striker Havard Nielsen fell just wide of the goal of the previously unemployed Nikola Vasilj. Shortly before, Eggestein had had St. Pauli’s best chance of the second half with a header on the other side (77′).
Just when the game had picked up speed again and everyone was preparing for an exciting final phase, the situation in the visitors’ block escalated and chaos effectively ended this top game. Despite eight minutes of stoppage time, both teams were unable to get going after the riots.
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Sports current | 11/10/2023 | 10:25 p.m
