His shot was worth 3.45 million euros, but Christos Tzolis didn’t care. How else should one interpret what the Fortuna Düsseldorf player showed on Tuesday evening in the St. Pauli stadium? The penalty shootout was about a place in the semi-finals of the DFB Cup and a lot of money for a second division team. Tzolis stood before the decisive shot, the south stand around him was noisy and the home fans whistled at him.
3.45 million euros – and Tzolis chipped the ball. In the arc it flew into the goal.
A penalty shot like this is one of the cheekiest kinds; Czech Antonin Panenka made it famous in the 1976 European Championship final. Christos Tzolis is only 22 years old, which could be an indication of why he did what he did. His goal to make it 4-3 in the penalty shootout finally brought Fortuna Düsseldorf the semi-final they were longing for, for the first time in 28 years, including a hefty million-dollar bonus. “It was one of the craziest games of my career, I will always remember that,” Tzolis said into the microphones after the game. And why exactly this shot? “It was the last penalty. Normally the goalkeeper isn’t in the middle,” he said. The fans celebrated him.
And despite the success, Tzolis still had to get a reprimand from his coach after the game.
A lob on a penalty? “I’m not a fan of it,” says coach Thioune
1:1 after 90 minutes, 2:2 after 120: Fortuna coach Daniel Thioune found that both teams had worked hard against each other in regular time, and there weren’t many chances to score. He was “extremely pleased” that his team was able to advance to the next round thanks to a strong defense, but he was anything but satisfied with the way his protégé converted the penalty. He would have preferred if Tzolis had sunk the ball into the goal with a crisp finish. Thioune found the lob “completely inappropriate,” “I’m not a fan of it and I don’t think it’s respectful towards the opponent,” he said on ZDF.
That also showed what kind of character this game had: St. Pauli actually went into this quarter-final as favorites, but the two second division teams played on equal terms for a long time. Düsseldorf took the lead twice in Hamburg, 1-0 with a penalty from Vincent Vermeij in the 38th minute and 2-1 from Ao Tanaka in the 99th minute. But St. Pauli came back every time, most spectacularly with Carlo Boukhalfa’s goal in extra time. “We could have lost the thing,” Thioune said later. He had a lot of empathy left for the Hamburgers, who ultimately failed dramatically.
St. Pauli’s coach Fabian Hürzeler had to go to the stands in extra time with a yellow-red card, but after that he hardly quarreled with the narrow result, at least publicly. For St. Pauli it would have been the first semi-final since 2006. “We didn’t play to the best of our ability for 90 minutes. Our goal must be to find better solutions,” said Hürzeler. Too many mistakes made the game easier for the opponent. St. Pauli is still unbeaten in the league and should stay that way in the upcoming game against pursuers Greuther Fürth: “Good teams get back up after defeats like that,” said Hürzeler.
For Fortuna Düsseldorf the path now continues in the cup semi-finals
Marcel Hartel in particular had become the tragic figure of the evening: the captain of FC St. Pauli had decided the most recent meeting between the two teams in the league for Hamburg with two goals just a few days ago, and he was unable to repeat that on Tuesday evening. Although he converted a penalty to make it 1-1, the 28-year-old’s nerves failed twice in the penalty shootout: Fortuna keeper Florian Kastenmeier was able to fend off his shot, then the penalty had to be repeated because Kastenmeier had jumped out of the goal too early . But Hartel also failed on the second attempt. Heartbroken, he pulled his jersey over his head, almost as if he wanted to hide from the disappointed looks of his fans in the sold-out stadium.
Because Kastenmeier also saved against Maurides in the penalty shootout, he became one of Fortuna’s heroes that evening. Goal scorer Tzolis thought his saves were “crazy,” “he’s so important for us.” For Fortuna Düsseldorf, the path to the cup now continues in the round of the last four; the club secured the title in 1979 and 1980. In the last semi-final in 1996, the club lost 2-0 to Karlsruher SC.
Incidentally, Tzolis himself volunteered to take the last penalty, although he was actually scheduled for third position. “It just felt right to me,” he said. And no one could deny that: his feelings didn’t deceive him that evening.