2nd league
Second division stronghold Hamburg: St. Pauli and HSV pull away
Hamburger SV stays close to St. Pauli with its win against Magdeburg. photo
© Daniel Bockwoldt/dpa
Will the second division promotion battle become a Hamburg championship? Because the competition is making a mistake, FC St. Pauli and HSV are leading the way. The city duel is gradually emerging on the horizon.
The fight for promotion in the 2nd Bundesliga is increasingly becoming a Hamburg city championship. Because the competitors stumbled, they are lying FC St. Pauli and Hamburger SV are back at the top of the table – and everything boils down to a first-round showdown between first-placed Millerntor and their pursuer from Volkspark on December 1st.
“Everyone has been looking forward to the derby since it was scheduled – that’s just how it is,” said HSV midfielder Jonas Meffert after the 2-0 win against 1. FC Magdeburg at Sport1. At the moment one can predict that “it’s a bit of a stake, since we’re both at the top right now. I hope it’s still like that until the derby.”
But there are still a little more than three weeks and two game days in between until the duel of duels. That’s why Meffert’s teammates also warned. “Now we’re playing away in Kiel. That’s the important thing now,” said defender Stephan Ambrosius. Goalkeeper Daniel Heuer Fernandes told Sport1: “The road is long and we need a lot of points. That’s why next week is important and we want to steal points.”
Competition leaves points behind
In any case, the second division stronghold is currently in Hamburg. FC St. Pauli and HSV had already taken first and second place on the eighth, ninth and tenth matchdays. Now Fortuna Düsseldorf, Holstein Kiel and 1. FC Kaiserslautern did the Hanseatic League a favor and left points on the twelfth matchday. FC St. Pauli (26 points) were able to pull ahead a little for the first time by winning 2-0 on Friday evening against SV Elversberg and HSV (24).
There is little to suggest that anything will change so quickly in this particular constellation. Both Hamburg teams have been consistent this season. FC St. Pauli is still unbeaten this season, HSV is a force at home and took their sixth win in their sixth game against Magdeburg in their home Volkspark.
Both teams are particularly strong in defense: the neighborhood club has conceded the fewest goals with nine goals, and for HSV, the 2-0 win against Magdeburg was the sixth game to nil. And that despite injury-related changes in defense like on Saturday evening. “We have a good breadth in the squad and you can rely on everyone,” said HSV coach Tim Walter.
Confident and stable
The maturity and balance also speak for both teams at the moment. After a week of football piecework with three games in seven days, including 120-minute feats of strength in the DFB Cup against Schalke 04 (FC St. Pauli) and at Arminia Bielefeld (HSV), the St. Pauli coach’s teams took action Fabian Hürzeler and his HSV colleague Walter were surprisingly confident and stable in their victories in Elversberg and against Magdeburg.
FC St. Pauli can also almost easily compensate for the absence of important players such as defense chief Eric Smith on Friday evening or captain Jackson Irvine, who is suspended next Friday (6.30 p.m./Sky) against Hannover 96. And so the greatest praise on Friday evening came from Elversberg’s coach Horst Steffen: “There are other opponents against whom we can win more.”
Given the current state of the team, it is difficult for even the most imaginative football fan to imagine that FC St. Pauli could experience a slump this season. Just like in the 2021/22 season, when Hamburg were at the top of the table after the first half of the season and slipped in the second series. “We challenge each other, which is why things are going very well at the moment,” explained St. Pauli’s midfield marathon man Marcel Hartel. This should remain the case beyond the city duel on December 1st.