Hamburg greets twice from the top: FC St. Pauli has taken over the lead in the 2nd Bundesliga with a 2-1 (1-0) win over first division relegated Hertha BSC.
The Hanseatic League, the only team to remain undefeated, once again overtook city rivals HSV, who had the same number of points and had beaten previous leaders Fortuna Düsseldorf 1-0 on Friday.
Johannes Eggestein’s follow-up (25′) and Marcel Hartel’s header (74′) scored for Pauli in front of 66,113 spectators in the Olympic Stadium. For the Berliners, who shortened the gap thanks to Derry Scherhant (83′), the mini-series of two wins ended. With nine points, Hertha is only two points ahead of Schalke 04 in 16th place.
Before the game, Kevin-Prince Boateng, who ended his active career after the previous season, said an emotional farewell to and from the Hertha fans. “You are always in my heart,” said the 36-year-old into the stadium microphone. At “Sky” he put his club under pressure: “Promotion must always be the goal.”
But that will probably be difficult, although the newly formed team has gotten better and better in the last few weeks (16 goals in five games). The Paulians, who were very confident on the ball, clearly dominated the game from around the 20th minute. Hertha was lucky that referee Deniz Aytekin took back a penalty for the guests in the 35th minute, according to the video images.
Even after the break, St. Pauli hardly let up, the busy Elias Saad was involved in almost all of the action worth seeing. Defensively, Hamburg were extremely disciplined, and despite all their efforts, Hertha hardly took any action.