FC St. Pauli is currently on the penultimate place in the 2nd Bundesliga. The people of Hamburg are in crisis. Your problems are homemade.
When it comes to the word “experiment” Andreas Bornemann intervenes vehemently. The sports director always emphasizes that FC St. Pauli started the season with club icon Timo Schultz (43) out of full conviction. And those responsible at Millerntor have not deviated a millimeter from this conviction. Schultz has the confidence, Schultz stays, there are no doubts about Schultz.
The pledge of loyalty is frequently renewed these days. Because the coach question has long since become a reliable standard situation after the final whistle. No wonder: St. Pauli has won one (!) Of the first 13 games. Since the derby coup against the table-leading city rivals from the Volkspark (2: 2), the Kiez kickers have lost six of seven games and are racing towards league three at a hellish pace. With Schultz?
Supports that don’t support
The young professional trainer has earned an appreciation among the St. Pauli youngsters that attracted attention beyond the club’s borders and sharpened the focus of external interested parties. “Schulle”, who as a player enjoyed a reputation as an impeccable football painter at Millerntor, is not a classic cheap solution with a welcome shot of Reeperbahn romance. The assessments of several observing experts were unanimous – and still are: He can do something. But can he also handle the most complicated printing situation with the necessary acumen?
The measures with which the coach wants to drive the urgently needed jolt into the structure have so far fizzled out without any effect. Schultz did not find a stable stem construct in the first 13 attempts. Former pillars such as Buballa, Knoll or Benatelli do not constantly call up their performance and are therefore not set. Or are the battle-tested warriors insecure precisely because they cannot be sure of their role?
Is Stojanovic the solution?
Robin Himmelmann is also one of the ranks of the second division veterans. The construction site that has now arisen in the gate is homemade. Even under Jos Luhukay – the walking anti-thesis to the thoroughbred Kiezian Schultz – the regular keeper was anything but undisputed in recent years. It was Schultz who had the courage to try without Himmelmann. For this he was bitterly punished. Substitute Svend Brodersen made a big buck on his second assignment and decided the game in Fürth early on to the detriment of Hamburg.
The fact that Dejan Stojanovic, a goalkeeper from the bench of the English second division club Middlesborough, has now been loaned to the end of the season shows how great the need is. Not having tackled this problem vigorously before the start of the season is a failure to be blamed on sports director Andreas Bornemann. Not having identified the quality deficit as such would have to be written into the class register as a misjudgment by the entire sports management, including the coaching team.
Brown and white have turned gray
Team stability begins with a stable goalkeeper. The effectiveness is guaranteed by goal-scorers who are unerring and strong. With Henk Veerman and Dimitrios Diamantakos, the club sold 23 goals this summer. The players wanted to leave, so their departure could not be prevented. Obtaining adequate replacements was an extraordinarily demanding task. The candidates Bornemann has counted on have not yet told a success story. Makienok (two goals), Dittgen (three) and Kyereh (three) would need a noticeable performance explosion to lift the weakest attack in the league after Würzburg and Sandhausen to a successful level. All in all, it doesn’t fit in the back or in the front.
Should St. Pauli not win the trend-setting catch-up game in Würzburg, it would be the twelfth winless game in a row – a new negative record in the lower house for the former privateers of the league. All pretty toothless. Brown-white has turned quite gray. In addition to the multi-layered social commitment, the sporting output should have long since returned to a more glamorous level.
Continuity is something else
Luhukay’s predecessor, Markus Kauczinski, was dismissed from sixth place on the table with the note that “we want to see football again, which is played to win – and not to lose.” A request by President Oke Göttlich, who had set the route for himself when he took office in 2014, to ensure continuity of personnel. The Freiburg or Heidenheim models should serve as a romantic blueprint for the St. Pauli-Weg. Schultz is the sixth coach in Göttlich’s six-year tenure.
Continuity is not an end in itself, said Göttlich after one of the layoffs. An assessment that should also be currently valid. Schultz and Bornemann, his athletic executive, are currently rather suffering employees. The trust in the duo persists – definitely until the game in Würzburg. At the bottom of the table without a win, however, not only Divine expects a sign. The entire St. Pauli community urgently needs a robust signal that will bring back the faith in the kicking staff and those responsible.
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