There is smoke, there is a crash, there is a whistle, and there is also a fight: the Hamburg city derby between HSV and FC St. Pauli was like an action film. With a late climax.
Corny Littmann leads a colorful life: He became a member of the Green Party in 1979, has always fought for the rights of homosexuals, was a football official for around seven years and during this time led FC St. Pauli into the first league, from which, after he beat FC Bayern, he soon said goodbye. In his main job, Littmann runs a theater in St. Pauli that specializes in all kinds of stage art. It is a wonderfully frivolous thing when, in the run-up to the city derby, this cabaret manager calls out to the Hamburg sports club, which was once considered the best German club many years ago, that it is being run miserably. This HSV, whose supervisory board includes delegates from the Hanseatic city’s fine society, in which those responsible like to appear in fine blue, this HSV, which has the entrepreneur Klaus-Michael Kühne behind it, a mega-multi-superbillionaire, this HSV, whose importance for the City’s self-perception is only surpassed by the port – so this club is supposed to be poorly managed?
Corny Littmann, whose club has had a fabulous season, has a lot to say – and he’s right. HSV has been stuck in the second division for six years like a space traveler in a wormhole: it can’t get out of there. He has the most money, he has an overwhelmingly large number of fans, he has players who were also regulars in first division clubs. But every time everyone thinks they’re waking up from a nightmare, they realize: they didn’t sleep at all.
FC St. Pauli, on the other hand, doesn’t want to wake up from its dream: the club stayed at the top of the table almost unchallenged for long stretches of the season. Playfully strong and entertaining (that was often different in the past), tactically consistent, led by a young coach who is considered the Xabi Alonso of the second division: Fabian Hürzeler, a doctor’s son from Munich.
City derby in Hamburg: HSV (probably) fails to gain promotion
The starting position before this city derby: St. Pauli is only one swim away from league one. HSV, on the other hand, somehow drifted away.
“Football is not about life and death,” said former Liverpool FC coach Bill Shankly. “Football is about serious things.” And so in this match, three game days before the end of the season, it would also be about honor, from which St. Pauli could gain a lot and HSV would lose an even greater amount. Even before kick-off, the first pack formation occurred when a Pauli ball landed in the HSV half during the warm-up. The ensuing scuffle was reminiscent of schoolyard shoving: “Hey, you dishonorable person!” – “What did you call me, you idiot!?”
Hamburg’s north curve built a “Volkspark Fortress”, as the words on the giant banner said, and the guest curve responded with red fire that became a magnificent cloud. The game had barely started when it was already interrupted: it was as foggy on the field as it was on a November morning at the jetties. And HSV emerges from the smoke with the first chances. Soon, that’s how it works here, the first foolishness follows in the form of unnecessary ball losses by Jean-Luc Dompé, who the club had bought for his speed dribbling – and who was noticed as a pacesetter in an illegal car race shortly after taking up his duties in 2022.
As a result, Pauli cleverly prevents HSV from playing football. Until a double chance by Glatzel and Königsdorfer (20th), after which the noise curve went up. A good derby is always an action film.
The third HSV goal against St. Pauli also counts
The first explosion scene is abruptly ended by the referee with a whistle: Glatzel is said to have kicked a defender under the sole of his foot on his solo to make it 1-0 (24th). The goal doesn’t count, a whistle sounds in the circle as if it were a sudden hearing loss. Pauli responds with a huge chance of his own through Kemlein (27th), but the ball sticks to the post. It was offside anyway. This is followed by a longer passage that is more like dialogue scenes: it goes back and forth, including a header off the outside of the post by Königsdörffer (36th). The dialogue scenes are replaced by tackles, blocks and pushes. We’re not here to banter. Shots on goal, however, rarely occur until the break.
And Düsseldorf, four points ahead of HSV in third place, leads 2-0 in the parallel game against Nuremberg. What else is to come? The sky thinks and darkens.
The goal that finally falls to make it 1-0 again (62nd) is the result of a lot of jostling and jostling. The referee gives it but soon withdraws it. Nothing again. Large parts of the audience are not happy. It seems to them as if the world, especially the brown and white world, wants to thumb its nose at HSV.
While Düsseldorf scores to make it 3-1, a few players stand up to resist, Königsdörffer, who is playing his best game in a long time, tries sharply from a distance, Pherai dares a clever free kick. Nice, but without consequences.
Well, Glatzel has to do it again: He heads the 1-0 goal, which this time is untouchable, in the 85th minute, when some in the stadium were already in the twilight phase, especially the Pauli goalkeeper Vasilj, who skipped past a corner kick from Muheim. The game in which so many pegs have been pulled finally gets its punchline. And the second league is a little more dramatic: If the victory is of little use to HSV, St. Pauli will lose ground to Düsseldorf, whose management Corny Littmann has not yet commented on. The referee gets the last word in the game, but Pherai doesn’t listen to him and misses a penalty. Anti-climax, bad for an action film. Nevertheless, a commotion breaks out with the final whistle. “The city belongs to us,” the Nordkurve proclaims with a hastily unrolled banner. The derby honor is saved. Let’s see when and in which league it will be on the line next time.