It is often said that football writes very special stories. A story is special, for example, when a player scores against his former club – of all things Player XY, the fate-stricken TV commentators like to shout into the microphone. It also becomes noticeably emotional when a player is injured and scores a goal reports back.
On Tuesday, in FC St. Pauli’s 2-1 extra-time win against Schalke 04 in the second round of the DFB Cup, none of these stories were written. It wasn’t even a cup sensation, because ultimately only the second division table leader prevailed against a Schalke team that had recently been in crisis in the lower house. St. Pauli’s winning scorer Johannes Eggestein didn’t score against his former club or after a long downtime, but with a completely pointless header from a standard free-kick cross. This story is still remarkable: Eggestein of all people – who would have believed him to have a decisive influence on the game not long ago?
Eggestein, 25, was once considered a promising striker in Germany, which was woefully lacking in center forwards. He played in all DFB youth teams from the U15 to the U21 and always scored a lot of goals. It was regularly said that he would become one, especially at his youth club Werder Bremen, they were eagerly awaiting his breakthrough. That would have been another story that supposedly only football writes: Not only Johannes Eggestein was considered an exciting future project in Bremen, his brother Maximilian, who was based in midfield, was also expected to achieve great things.
The Eggesteins were supposed to shape a green and white European Cup era in Bremen. Only the older one, Maximilian, made it there, albeit with SC Freiburg. With Johannes Eggestein, on the other hand, there were now even doubts as to whether he was even suitable for high-class football: he was too slow for a deep runner and not powerful enough for a wall player who was 1.83 meters tall. When instinct kicked in, his attractiveness for ambitious clubs fell enormously.
Eggestein was used incorrectly for years
When Eggestein went to St. Pauli in the summer of 2022 for the relatively moderate fee of 600,000 euros, even the most benevolent neighborhood club fans were skeptical: he had had a decent season in Austria at Linzer ASK and a goalless season at Royal Antwerp in Belgium, nothing so what creates greater expectations. And that’s how it started: Eggestein had a disappointing debut season at St. Pauli, he scored five times in 21 games and never became a regular. In the second half of the season he was often no longer even called up to the team squad.
Quite a few were therefore surprised when the young coach Fabian Hürzeler came to a conclusion during the summer preparation: Used correctly, this Eggestein is so good that the Paulians don’t need a new striker – Simon Zoller came anyway, but he had it Coach has already developed a tailor-made deployment plan for Eggestein.
Knows the gaps that Johannes Eggestein should fill: St. Pauli coach Fabian Hürzeler.
(Photo: Marcus Brandt/dpa)
Hürzeler, 30, plays an unconventional style of football, everything is designed to provoke the opponent’s pressing and combine into the resulting gaps. This requires patient ball relays, clever movements between the chains – all things that a classic center forward doesn’t necessarily have to be able to do. Eggestein can do all of this anyway, he is a hybrid footballer who was long thought to be a penalty area digger.
A false assumption, as was once again evident against Schalke: Eggestein was initially spared, but after his substitution in the second half he was part of a supply chain that reliably transported the ball into the dangerous zones – and, as with the winning goal, he was there anyway always on the scene when the Kiezkickers needed a step up in their attack. That speaks for his current self-confidence, said Hürzeler, while St. Pauli’s sports director Andreas Bornemann emphasized Eggestein’s work ethic in periods of drought.
There can no longer be any talk of drought: Eggestein has scored five goals in seven second division games, plus one assist. Not enough to get back to Germany’s promise as a centre-forward. As a personified hope for promotion at St. Pauli, life isn’t bad for him at the moment.