Matchday 32: FC Sankt Pauli – VfR Aalen 0-3…

Yellow card…

source: http://www.bild.de

This is not good…We are Sankt Pauli fans and we can tolerate defeat just fine, so with the help of some good, beer, pot, etc, etc and by having some Athens Club friends along,  somehow we managed to “digest” quite easy squad’s depressing performance and hands-down home defeat vs VfR Aalen. What’s a little more difficult to digest is Coach Vrabec’s disrespectful (towards more than one direction) behavior during the post game press conference… Seems that certain people have not comprehended 100% where they play… Herr Vrabec, this is FC Sankt Pauli, a club where Values are more important than results…

 

Meeting place, the München Bierhaus towards the northern edge of Athens where the decimated, for a variety of reasons, Scum crew met with the equally decimated Athens Club colleagues with one common target: a stressless football afternoon between friends along with some good beer, good food and some good talk about past and future 🙂 Predictions before the game? Actually, there wasn’t such discussion, nobody really cared, of course defeat was a possibility but nobody was prepared for what followed… Captain Boll’s absence was slightly discussed but neither of us knew at the time what was going on – more on this later…

From this point of view, Aalen’s opening goal by Lechleiter on 3′ (and the way it was conceived) helped us adjust somehow towards reality. A response attempt from Schachten (8′) just by Fejzic’s left post and, from this point until the end of the half, the most lively stage of the  game was the point that the extreme Spring rain started rapidly penetrating the tents above us. This is the kind of footbal we witnessed…

Highlights from the 1st half

No big expectations for the 2nd half (certain pals were paying more attention to the food!) until 47′, when Thorandt’s 12m shot awaken us but only temporarily. Nothing followed until 58′ when the fate of the match was sealed, thanks to a penalty that probably never happened (it’s not important, in the end) and converted to 0-2 by Leandro… A 20m Rzatkowski shot that didn’t especially bothered Fejzic (62′) and the 3rd one on 68′ with Junglas execeuting poor Heerwagen from outside the box and among some legs… Vfr Aalen having fun on the pitch, some scarecrows in brown and white getting occasionaly along the way, thing became really ugly…It could be 0-4 on 77′ but assistant referee called the goal off for an offside that never happened, a gesture of pure compassion towards the sweating Vrabec beside him… Torture went on until the final whistle with the brown white squad walking unwillingly on the field, counting on the opponent’s good will to avoid worse (how much worse really?), a plan that actually worked…

One of the many flags yesterday having the number 17 on… Coach was irritated… (image source: FCSP community on Google+)

End of the game found us not in the best possible mood but we handled it the usual way that we’re used to. No complains (maybe a few jokes), no heavy criticism (although we were allowed to do so – losing is not a bad thing in the FCSP, walking in the field in front of 28000 fans is…), no booos – just plans for the next common trip next season, small stuff from the previous ones and…of course H$V! About 20′ later when Erich (owner and SC Freiburg fan) brought the tsipouro shots, immediately after the opening FC Augsburg goal against the soon-to-join-us neighbor, everyhing became almost right. Why “almost”?

Because next week we’re going Köln to face the local new Liga 2 champions. A lot of people will travel with the Special Train to follow the squad for the last time this season and, if Herr Vrabec allows (be patient, we’ll get to this), to see playing (for the last time maybe)  one of the biggest modern era FCSP symbols, Fabian Boll. All these people deserve much better than seeing their beloved team being humiliated the way it happened with Stani’s last home game on 2011 and there’s a big danger that, if squad and staff don’t get serious now, this will be a game that everybody will want to forget as soon as possible…a fine season is about to get screwed up without a reason, so please everybody get in the field and, if playing just for FCSP is not a motive, do at least the obvious as professional players you are…

Match goals:

0:1 Rechleiter (3′, right foot shot, Assist: Klauß)

0:2 Leandro (58′, left foot penalty)

0:3 Junglas (68′, right foot shot, Assist: Daghfous)

Spectators: 27497

Sankt Pauli cards: Thy (6), Rzatkowski (7), Schachten (6), Buchtmann (14), Gregoritsch (2)

For full match coverage (in German) visit: http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/2bundesliga/spieltag/2-bundesliga/2013-14/32/1894851/spielbericht_fc-st-pauli-18_vfr-aalen-1422.html

Boll! Boll! Boll! Boll! Boll! Boll! Boll! Boll! Boll! Boll! Boll!

 

A few words about Roland Vrabec…

Not seeing the Captain (and finding out that he’s not included even in the bench) was sort of a dissapointment today. Still, nobody in the venue (this sweet bunch included people with lots of thousands miles for FCSP) said a word about Herr Vrabec, all of us confident that he will do the obvious gesture of respect (especially in a season with nothing left at stake), at least in one of the two remaining matches. So, it was a huge surprise when I read in the SM some comments directly comparing him with the Unspeakable Andre Schubert… Started asking and not before long, I’ve found my way to the press conference video – my German didn’t help at a level so I can be sure about this – finally I ended up at the Übersteiger blog where I found in the match report his exact statements and couldn’t believe what I was reading. Seems we have a problem here…

Vrabec has been insulting towards both Fabian Boll and the majority of the FCSP fanbase, at the same time. Seems that working pressure has stressed him at a level of forgetting some of the fundamental values that this club is based on. One of them is respect for our “Heroes”, the ones that all along these years have given heart and soul for FCSP and the Captain is one of…what the fuck I’m doing here discussing the obvious???

Coach, get a grip, this is a different club – a club with a different culture. In fact, if this was an “ordinary” club, you wouldn’t probably sit at the edge of the bench in the first place OR you would be boooed by “customer” fans after the first 3-4 defeats at the almighty Millerntor. How many times you have been booed Herr Vrabec this season? None, never, nada and all this because we’re FCSP fans. We have done more than our share here. We have supported the squad through thick and thin, being always positive – on Thursday I’m travelling again (a total of more than 3.500 km) to support the squad that you haven’t managed to assemble so far without complaining about the results that didn’t came. Who gives you the right to call us morons here just because we want to honour someone that you will need a dozen lifes to reach his contribution to FCSP, especially in a season with no visible target left? We have done everything right here, you are the one that has failed here – failed not to deliver results and promotion but failed to inspire and get a team into the pitch that will play even basic football for the fans… in the FCSP world this is of course excusable – disrespecting is not… Ask Herr Unspeakable…

Some already say that the guy should be finished. I personally disagree here…undertaking a task like being FCSP coach is not an easy task including pressure coming probably from all kinds of sources (except the fans he yesterday disrespected). His body language both after the match and during the press conference were characteristic of a person not in a calm state. Somebody will probably argue that being a shitty person and a guy that breaks under pressure maybe two quite different things but the difference they make when this person is the FCSP coach is not big… I say that the guys has no “criminal record” so far, hence, if story stops here and he finally snaps out, we could probably consider this just an “unlucky” moment. So, it should be a yellow to Herr Vrabec along with a kind reminder that he is risking too much a second one…

One thing is for sure – with or without him, we don’t want recent (sad) history to be repeated…