Fc St. Pauli finish 2021 as league leaders in the 2. Liga, despite a 0:3 in Kiel in the last game of the year. A warning at the right time for the Kiezklub.
It could have been the perfect end to an almost perfect year, but in the last game of 2021 FC St. Pauli conceded a clear 0:3 defeat at Holstein Kiel. Sloppy because the autumn championship had already been decided? Tired after a long year in which St. Pauli won almost everything? Captain Philipp Ziereis doesn’t want to hear about any of that. “We wanted to go all out again today and make our great year golden,” the defender assured the Sky microphone that it wasn’t a lack of attitude at the Förde.
It was much more due to the fact that the Kiez – with the exception of the first five minutes – did not play their usually so secure combination game at any time. Kiel took the creative players Marcel Hartel and Daniel-Kofi Kyereh completely out of the game with a five-man backline supported by a three-man midfield. Top scorer Guido Burgstaller also hung in the air for almost the entire game. “They made the spaces very tight and that caused us problems,” Ziereis analysed.
Away unattractive
St. Pauli once again showed their away face, which with four defeats and 18 goals conceded in ten games is clearly less attractive than the flawless appearance in front of their own audience (eight games, eight wins). Even though the Hamburg team always tried to break down the defensive bulwark of the Störche, they were still well served with the 0:3 in the end. Fin Bartels, in particular, was hardly in control of the visitors, although in the second half the rest of the defence mostly consisted of only two or three players.
“The mood is dampened, we expected something different today. Maybe this will show us before Christmas that we won’t get anything for free in the second half of the season and that we have to play to the limit in every game,” said coach Timo Schultz after the game, although he recognised a possible added value.
“The boys did an incredible job “
Ziereis also thought of this added value. “Maybe it was another clear defeat at the right time, which wakes us all up and puts all the talk of promotion and the Bundesliga on the back burner again for the time being. “
The fact that there is still a lot of talk about this big goal at the Kiezklub is the result of a fantastic first half of the season. “If we take the whole year and this season as a whole, the boys have achieved something incredible,” said Schultz proudly about the past twelve months, which will give him a nice celebration despite the 0:3.
