They lost today 6-0. They are 0-3, 14 ga., 1 gf. Has a team ever gotten off to a worse start in BL history? What is the problem here? I know they lost a few players (Rahn, Meggle and the defender that went to Hansa--Kientz?--come to mind), but I'd still think they would at least be competitive. Today's loss was to Lubeck, a promoted team and presumably an easy mark. I know it's early, but can St. Pauli turn things around? Or is this fascinating club headed for the amateur scrapheap, never to be heard from again? And what our the prospects for YA Gibbs?
I think they overestimated themselves a little. You may not forget that their promotion two years ago was a sensation as they started with the lowest budget of all 2nd division teams back then. Now their top players are away and they still have problems with facing the situation - if you're relegating you're expecting to be competitive and play for promoting again, but their team isn't more than average. They need a new coach urgently and maybe he can reach something. Gibbs is injured since the first game (torn muscle)
The team's captain (I'm not going to attempt to spell his name, starts with an S, ends with ski) after the match looked to be near tears during an interview. Said this is the low point. The highlights looked bad, very bad. I can't remember ever seeing a supposedly 'professional' defense look that bad. The midweek cup match at TeBe Berlin is looking a lot more troublesome.
Good gawd. St. Pauli is beating Braunschweig 7-1, after losing 6-0 in their last league game. What is going on here? Alex K, enlighten us.
Of course I had to work last night, so i could only listen to the radio. But i couldn't believe it until i came home this morning and read it on kicker.de. (did someone watch the DSF highlight show ? I won't read in the Eintracht forum or ask someone until the next game, i would like hear a objective opinion). The match report didn't sounds that horrible (9:6 chances, the last 4 goals in the last 15 minutes, when the game was already over). St. Pauli isn't one of the worst teams in the league, Eintracht has a lot of injured players (yes, i am looking for excuses ). My general opinion on Eintracht is, that the coach plays to offensive (and the strikers are out of shape). I still believe that both, Eintracht and St.Pauli, will finish between 8 and 12, but in Eintracht's case, the coach should use again last season's system. BTW, this was Eintracht's highest defeat since 1985 (relgation from the Bundesliga, this year they were REALLY bad). Jacob Thomas (i will post a link to this thread in YA) wasn't rated by kicker.
The first half was quite open, St Pauli just took one chance more. In the second Braunschweig stopped playing and made horrible mistakes in the defence (Thiam, Piorunek), which almost forced St Pauli to score. And when they were on a run, of course Braunschweig wasn't able to stop them. Reasons? I don't know. Braunschweig got more class than playing for relegation. They got a good roster and bought many good players (though not having the money as I heard - how is the financial situation? Last I heard is that 800 K for this seasons are missing). But you might be right, tactically Braunschweig plays a little naive IMO. It looks like D3 = play soccer, we are better and we'll score the goals at some point. Doesn't work in D2 though.
No, it isn't that bad. After Eintracht got a new sponsor, the worst-case-scenario is -400k, while the best case would be +/- 0 or a small +. The numbers differ, but i think that -200 to -300 are most probably.
St. Pauli's new acquisitions were the prime scorers in this match - Meier and Ofodile got two each with Yang getting one. There seemed to be quite a bit of confusion in the first three matches especially after losing most of the first team, Meggle, Rahn, Rath, et al. In reading on the St. Pauli message boards, there hasn't been one reason why the team has been playing poorly or even why they won last night. Only thing seems to be the team came out flat at the start of the season without the necessary grit and determination. They seemed to have found it last night! Forza St. Pauli!
Well, they took another beating today (hee hee). Giving up 4 goals to Union is bad, bad sign, too. With Keita out injured, Baumgart is Union's only credibale threat (and Pauli summerally played a strategy of hacking the old man every chance they got). Pauli looked the better team in the first half, but got blitzed in the second half. Lastly (and sadly), some idiot in the St. Pauli block sent a police officer to the hospital after tossing a firecracker at her. The cops were videoing the match, so he may be in for a surprise.
Oh yea: Yang was clearly St. Pauli's best player, as he was against TeBe a couple weeks ago. He is going to be very, very good.