FC St. Pauli opposition profile: The reality check after the euphoria

‘Second season syndrome’ is one of the many sayings that probably every football fan knows – the phenomenon where the second year after promotion is much harder than the first. When the euphoria has faded and expectations are higher, it’s said that many teams also lose some of their easiness. That’s pretty much what is happening to FC St. Pauli in the second season following their return to the Bundesliga: having proved many supposed experts wrong last season and stayed up pretty comfortably, Bayern’s next opponents currently find themselves in a downward spiral.

From best start to negative record

In mid-September, it looked as though the Hamburg side might seamlessly pick up from where they left off in the 2024/25 campaign. With seven points from the first three matches, St. Pauli recorded their best ever start to a Bundesliga season. Since then, however, they’ve not added to that points tally, suffering eight defeats in a row – the club’s worst losing run in the German top flight.

They’ve not been comprehensively beaten in many of those matches, though. 2-1 against Leverkusen, 1-0 at Bremen, 1-0 at Freiburg and most recently 1-0 against Union Berlin – Alexander Blessin’s men have often been close to getting points during their barren run. “I can’t fault the team, they’ve tried everything. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to get the point we deserved,” said the Pauli head coach after the defeat at home to Union last Sunday. In a game that was low on chances at both ends, the capital club were more efficient while the post got in the way of the Hamburg side’s best opportunity.

Harmless going forward but stable defensively

Now they just need to “get a scrappy 0-0 or 1-0, take confidence from that and start a mini run”, continued Blessin. Like they did last season, when the North Germans managed more frequently to swing the pendulum in their favour. However, their main problem continues to be putting the ball in the back of the net – especially since their top scorer in 2024/25, Morgan Guilavogui (six goals), left the club in the summer. St. Pauli have just nine goals to their name after 11 games, the second-lowest number after Heidenheim (eight). They’ve not scored in over half their games (six) – a league high together with Hamburger SV.

To make up for that, the centrepiece of last season must at least function again: the defence. With 41 goals conceded, St. Pauli boasted the best defence in the Bundesliga after Bayern (32) last term. The average of 1.2 goals conceded per match has almost doubled to 1.9 in the current campaign, although the Pauli rearguard is generally pretty solid and allows the third-fewest opposition attempts on goal (around 10 per game) in the league. Goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj also continues to do his bit, making the most saves in the competition (42). What’s more, there have hardly been any changes to the centre of defence. The regulars Hauke Wahl (32 years old), Adam Dźwigała (30), Karol Mets (32) and Eric Smith (28), from whom Blessin largely formed his back three last season, are still at the club. Only David Nemeth (24) is yet to feature this term because of injury.

Conceding more than necessary

Whether it’s down to a lack of luck or because St. Pauli can’t sustain the level of last season, the statisticians have calculated that the Kiezkicker have already conceded five more goals than would be expected from the opponents’ chances. Only Bayer 04 Leverkusen (+9) have a larger discrepancy in their xG (expected goals) value.

St. Pauli have also spent the most time behind (571 minutes) in matches this season. It’s hard to play cautious, underdog football when you’re trailing, but that’s exactly what served them so well last season, when they collected 18 of 32 points on the road. In the current campaign, though, Blessin’s men have yet to pick up any points outside Hamburg – the only away victory was in the derby against HSV.

St. Pauli certainly have what it takes to turn things around in the league – just hopefully not this weekend, from a Munich point of view. They’re not making any bold statements ahead of the meeting with the unbeaten league leaders in Hamburg, either. Instead, club president Oke Göttlich prefers to handle the current situation with humour: “Let me put it this way: the next game is against Bayern. We're not going to win that by a large margin.”