When Eintracht Braunschweig hosts FC St. Pauli on Friday, the two teams that have scored the fewest goals in the 2nd Bundesliga so far will duel. Both teams have scored a meager two goals in four league games.
Hamburg recently even played 0-0 three times in a row. For coach Fabian Hürzeler there is no reason to despair. It’s important that his players don’t cramp up in front of goal, said the 30-year-old on Wednesday: “We want and have to finish the attacks consistently. But it’s also important to me that the players in front of goal feel free in their heads. The should make free decisions. But we have to work for luck again.”
Albers: “Opportunities and goals in Braunschweig”
Hürzeler doesn’t want to criticize his offensive either, on the contrary: The coach emphasized that his team created numerous chances against Magdeburg (28 shots on target) and even gave special praise to Andreas Albers. The striker, who missed a number of opportunities against Magdeburg, is a “target player who did exactly what we brought him in. He tied and forwarded balls and was also present in the box himself.”
The 33-year-old Dane himself is optimistic about the game in Braunschweig on Friday evening (6.30 p.m., in the NDR Livecenter): “From my point of view it was an improvement, so that both can work out in Braunschweig: chances and goals.”
The question of whether St. Pauli would still hit the transfer market was left unanswered by sports director Andreas Bornemann. The probability is probably rather low, because accurate attackers who would solve St. Pauli’s storm problem are not easy to get a few days before “Deadline Day”.
Is the new “lion” Krüger already storming against St. Pauli?
Opponents Braunschweig, on the other hand, got down to business three days before the home game against Hamburg and signed a new attacker in Florian Krüger. The former U21 European champion comes to the Lower Saxony on loan from the Dutch second division club FC Groningen.
The 24-year-old is ready for action and full of energy: “I want to step on the gas with the team so that we can set our sights on our goals together and do our job against St. Pauli in the best possible way on Friday.”
Braunschweig without captain Nikolaou
However, the undertaking is made more difficult by the fact that Lower Saxony is again missing a professional because of a red card. Captain Jannis Nikolaou was sent off after an emergency brake at the 0:2 in Karlsruhe – in the fourth game of the season it was the third sending off for the BTSV.
“Because of his absence, they will miss an element in the game. But I am convinced that their squad is strong enough to absorb it,” St. Pauli coach Hürzeler believes that his Braunschweig counterpart Jens Härtel has solutions for the Nikolaou- will find failure.
BTSV spoilsport for St. Pauli in April
The duel with Braunschweig is likely to bring back unpleasant memories for Hürzeler: the 30-year-old only lost two of his 21 games as a St. Pauli coach – in April of this year there was a 3-4 in the city derby at HSV and a week earlier a home defeat against the “lions”.
The 1:2 at the Millerntor not only ended Hürzeler’s series of ten wins in a row, but also the Kiezkicker’s dreams of promotion. In general, the more recent direct comparison speaks more for Braunschweig: Last season, the Lower Saxony won both games and lost only one of the last five meetings (three wins, one draw).
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NDR 2 Sports | 08/30/2023 | 11:03 p.m
