Matchday 10: Fortuna Düsseldorf – FC Sankt Pauli 1-0

Standing Proud!

A Monday evening looks better on Matchday. I mean…It really does. Now if you put with it a win or a draw or even a loss but heads up, then we’re talking about an ideal way to start the week. After the obvious improvement of the team on Meggle’s watch (at last we stopped wanting to fork our eyes out during the game!!!), the era of reconstruction has started with all our hopes for the best, but also with endless support and understanding to the hard work this man has to see through. So here we are gathered once again under ‘’Uncle Zouzounos’s’’ roof to drink some beer, watch the game and analyze, and just before all starts, the sight of Thomas Meggle and Helmut Schulte cheerfully discussing about facts and stats, gives us a big smile…

 

…which a little later turns to a really skeptical grimace as once the first half starts we realize what we were already aware, but kind of not wanted to talk about so much. Fortuna was good. It is a team that has really worked and this is something that can easily be spotted. From the start of the game they seemed to be working on patterns and a gameplan that they obviously had worked a lot on training. SP though was nothing than the SP of the Vrabec era. Our gameplan was a bit vague and uncertain but on most parts we managed to follow Fortuna’s pace and threaten. Early on 4’ Fortuna’s Pohjanpalo get’s caught offside without threatening , and in return to that, on 9’ Rzatkowski leaves almost everyone behind him and gives Alushi a perfect opportunity to open the score for SP but Alushi sends the ball way beyond Rensing’s nets. Fortuna though seemed more certain in the field. The ball kept turning a lot around SP’s box and on 27’ Liendl takes advantage on SP’s bad ball intermissions, and passes to Pohjanpalo who get’s stopped by Tschauner. And of course Tschauner cannot stop everything, so  a couple of minutes later, on a similar SP defense disorder on 32’, Schmitz passes to Liendl who opens the score for Düsseldorf.  Nothing in particular. Just taking advantage of our defensive weakness. Seen that before hundreds of times but I think this is something we really need to work on. Budimir and Nöthe seemed unaible to penetrate Fortuna’s defensive lines, a thing Alushi tried to do with a really distant shot on 43’. Really well executed but Rensing could not easily be fooled and repelled the danger. Couple minutes more and the whistle sounded for the break.

Doom time, 32’…

Second half starts and this was definitely the half of controversy. SP wanted an evener so bad and Fortuna didn’t feel safe at all with this fragile 1:0 and wanted a second one to secure the three points. So this led to….TENSION. The cards say everything precisely. 2 yellow on the first half and 6 on the second half, equally shared. 4 for Fortuna and 4 for ourselves. Early on the start of the second half, Bruno Soares of Fortuna and our ex player Avevor see the yellow  and of course Sobiech and Nöthe couldn’t leave that fall behind and take a yellow each as well. On 54’ Budimir sends a nice shot directly to Rensing’s outer post while on 72’ maybe the biggest moment for Sankt Pauli when Verhoek  sneaks between Fortuna’s defense and scores a header after a Maier free shot, but got cancelled as he was a liiiiitle offside. Benschop returns the favor on Fortuna’s half when he opens the ball cleverly for Belinghausen but he manages to find Tschauner’s outer post (78′). The action gets completed with Verhoek missing another high pass from Budimir and with it the chance of an evener (83′) and with an xtra yellow for Fortuna with Da Silva Pinto.

Hey, heads up! (image source: http://www.mopo.de)

The bottom line is that we didn’t get one single point for this game. We suffered a defeat from Fortuna Düsseldorf which now rises to the second place in the ranks while we are 12th . But fuck that. who cares about position in the ranks? As long as we stay in the safe zone we want our team to play with their heads up and even if they lose, they lose as men. Exactly what they did today. Fortuna was shaking til the last moment for this 1:0 as the way SP kept on pressing and attacking made it look really fragile. The reasons we haven’t scored have been analyzed over and over again and it is really futile to mention them now, as signs of improvement are obvious. It will be really hard work to make this team work again as it should, and everyone knows it. The coach knows it, the players know it and of course WE know  it. Patience and understanding for this team who passed through fire and steel , and is still standing there chins up making us proud. This Saturday we are playing Karlsruher SC home. Forza SP.

Match goals:

1:0 Liendl (32′, Left foot  shot, Schmitz)

Spectators: 36255

Sankt Pauli cards:  Alushi(2),  Ziereis(5, misses next), Sobiech(4), Nöthe(3)

For full match coverage (in German) visit: http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/2bundesliga/spieltag/2-bundesliga/2014-15/10/2407617/spielbericht_fortuna-duesseldorf-13_fc-st-pauli-18.html

 Squad entrance

Further reading:

• Hamburg ist braun weiss
• Kleiner Tod
• Metalust & Subdiskurse Reloaded