FC St. Pauli is increasingly plunged into a sporting crisis. The deserved 1:2 (0:1) result at SC Freiburg was the seventh defeat in a row in everyday league life – there has never been a longer losing streak for Hamburg in the Bundesliga.
A good week after a shock 4-0 defeat against Borussia Mönchengladbach, Hamburg had to accept goals from Yuito Suzuki (40th minute) and Maximilian Eggestein (50th). So they experienced another setback. Louis Oppie’s goal (69) was not enough for the visitors.
FC St. Pauli entered the international break full of worries and in the relegation region, Freiburg are in tenth position. On the day in honor of captain and former national player Christian Günter, the sports club returned to win for the first time since September 20 and a 3-0 victory in Bremen after five league games without a win.
Honoring former national players
Breisgauers were able to enter this match inspired by their subsequent European Cup success in Nice. Additional motivation may have been that Günter, with 441 competitive appearances, became the only SC player of record ahead of Andreas Zeyer and was rewarded for this before kick-off.
Chanted by the fans, Günter was replaced after less than an hour. He previously promised fans lots of free drinks. By then, his team had already laid the foundation to sweeten his emotional afternoon.
The action quickly shifted to half the guests. Against Hamburger’s compactness, the South Baden team was only able to convert a lot of ball possession into something that could be counted on a few minutes before the end of the first half.
St. Petersburg goalkeeper Pauli was again unhappy
After receiving a corner kick from Niklas Beste, Suzuki fired a volley into the goal. Guest goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj was the provider of the unwanted assist, whose shot landed on a SC offensive player. The Baden team successfully took their seventh corner kick, having previously made too little use of set pieces. Beste (14) and Suzuki (28) squandered their chances to take the lead.
The visitors from the north concentrated on defense after an unexpected slump in recent weeks. Threat of an own goal? There isn’t any. Freiburg goalkeeper Noah Atubolu is mostly unemployed. “We don’t need to talk about beautiful football now, it’s about simple things,” said coach Pauli Blessin before the match and called for a “bastard mentality”.
Pauli almost failed to equalize several times
However, shortly after halftime, the defense did not reach 0-2. Goalkeeper Vasilj again blocked the ball from the Freiburg striker, but Eggestein also finished by standing free from a distance of five meters. As with the first goal, the cross came from Beste.
20 minutes before the end, things got interesting again out of nowhere and with Pauli’s first chance. Oppie finished it off after Freiburg’s sloppy defensive behavior and at least ended a goal drought after four league games without scoring an own goal. In the last half, the visitors almost equalized.
