3-0 against the winner of the Europa League – you can’t get much better than that. After the gala against Atalanta Bergamo, Alexander Blessin put the brakes on the euphoria immediately after the final whistle.
Before his players went on their well-deserved lap of honour, St. Pauli’s coach gathered them together in the team circle. Motto: be happy, yes, get carried away, no. After all, the first competitive match is scheduled for Friday in the DFB Cup against Hallescher FC. And the Bundesliga newcomers will not be able to afford to have any foolish ideas against the fourth division team from Saxony-Anhalt.
“It’s important to put it into perspective,” said Blessin after the win against the Lombards: “It was a great game and it was also important to go one better than the last two games. You can see that it’s working. But you can also see some things that we still need to work on. We know that there’s still a lot to come.”
“In the Bundesliga we also need match luck”
Blessin was referring in particular to the opening phase, in which the Italian guests applied a lot of pressure, his team sometimes seemed unsure and hardly found a way forward – also because relatively many passing errors crept into the build-up. “There were ten or 15 minutes in which we had to defuse a few situations. Atalanta played at an insane pace, you can’t always defend against that. If the opponent scores then it looks different again,” said Blessin.
For the coach, it is important that the brown and white players are still strong enough in their own weak phases to effectively limit the damage. “We will never have a phase of constant control in the Bundesliga, we also need luck in the match,” emphasised Blessin: “In the phases in which we have to take a breather, we have to make sure that we make few mistakes and allow the opposition few chances. You have to survive this time and then we also have the qualities to set a few stimuli ourselves. The better we are, the fewer phases we will allow the opponent to have.”
The new weekly MOPO from August 9, 2024 MOPO
Die WeeklyMOPO – new every Friday and everywhere where newspapers are sold!
This week with the following topics:
– The scam with the furnished rooms: While Hamburg hesitates, Berlin takes action against the high rents
– After an open letter from employees: UKE separates from chief physician
– Beaten, spat on and insulted: More and more attacks on Hamburg’s rescuers
– 20 pages of sport: How will HSV get promoted this year? What can St. Pauli expect this season? And: The big MOPO report card for Hamburg’s Olympic athletes
– 24 pages of Plan7: Interview with Jan Delay before his concert at the race track. Plus a ticket raffle!
At first, this only worked because goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj had another strong day – but then things got better and better. “Our match plan, how we want to build up, worked pretty well,” Blessin summed up: “What we missed was finding the next level. At the next level, we have to get behind the defensive line quicker, especially since Bergamo was very high up. We have to act more clearly with better deep runs.”
You might also be interested in: New signings in the thick of things: This is what St. Pauli’s new Bundesliga starting eleven looks like
St. Pauli’s next opponents are Halle, Heidenheim and Union Berlin, Bergamo was the last preparation game. Actually. “The next three games still count as preparation time for me,” proclaimed Blessin: “Because we’re simply not ready to go at this pace for 90 minutes.” If things continue to go this well, the preparation for FC St. Pauli should never stop.
