St Pauli plotting their next miracle in tantalising Bundesliga survival battle | Andy Brassell

It had begun to look like a lost cause. In a season where the Bundesliga’s relegation battle increasingly promises a richness that the title race may lack (with all due respect to Borussia Dortmund’s efforts to stalk Bayern Munich at closer quarters in recent weeks), it has felt like St Pauli were, like fellow minnows Heidenheim, ready to be cut away. The Hamburg club’s best-ever start to a top-flight season, two wins and a draw from their first three games, felt like an age ago. Nine successive defeats will do that to you.

Yet these masters of the unusual and the unexpected had another surprise up their sleeve this weekend; not least, one suspects, to themselves. Stuttgart travelled north on a fine run of form, sitting pretty in a Champions League spot and fresh from a week of qualifying for the DFB Pokal semi-finals, a trophy which they have every hope of retaining. With one league win against largely hopeless Heidenheim since that golden start for their hosts, who are also harbouring an injury list as long as one of Scottie Pippen’s arms (to paraphrase Jay-Z), it looked straightforward for Sebastian Hoeness and his men.

What happened next might take a while to work out. St Pauli didn’t just consign the form book to the bin but they took said receptacle into the car park and applied a lit match to it. Their victory was richly deserved. Whether it was the “siege mentality” that coach Alexander Blessin repeatedly referenced after the game or simply being in a place of having little left to lose, something clicked, and loudly.

What is certain is that when Manolis Saliakas strikes, it’s to herald good news. It was his low drive from the edge of the box that was the team’s first home goal of last season, St Pauli finally scoring at the sixth attempt after five preceding blanks. Saliakas’ goal against Holstein Kiel on that freezing Friday in late November 2024 kickstarted the club’s first top-flight season since 2011. With hope of salvation beginning to ebb away in late winter this time, it was just the right moment for another kiss of life from the Greek right-back.

This win, sealed by a Danel Sinani penalty which provided the shelter from Jamie Leweling’s late goal for the visitors, was as vital as it was unexpected. With Mainz continuing to rise under Urs Fischer but Werder Bremen – now 11 games without a win, despite a change of coach – and Wolfsburg continuing to tank, the three points put Blessin’s side right back in the mix. They trail Werder and Wolfsburg, two champions of relatively recent memory, by just two points.

Talking about the historical pedigree of their now immediate rivals is worthwhile, even if the two big boys have lost their way of late. This column has written before about how, since getting back to the Bundesliga, St Pauli are trying to work their way into existing in a top-flight environment that – without quite being the Premier League – has changed significantly in the 13 years that they were away. St Pauli’s wage budget, estimated to be around €23.5m per year, is the lowest in the league. Even Heidenheim spend more. Stuttgart’s overachievement under Hoeness is mightily impressive but they still pay two-and-a-half times what St Pauli do on wages (Wolfsburg, incidentally, have a heftier payroll than Stuttgart).

Jackson Irvine (No 7) heads clear under pressure for St Pauli against Stuttgart. Photograph: Action Press/Shutterstock

As they have reimagined what it might take to be a sustainable top-flight club, St Pauli have thought outside the box under president Oke Göttlich and his board, selling their unique Millerntor stadium to a co-operative of supporters in 2024 to raise around €30m. This is, however, not exactly a transfer war chest. Working around the margins is tough, as has this season been on the field. A run to the Pokal quarters had provided a little relief from struggles in the league but that cup success came to an end at Leverkusen in midweek, despite an oft-bright display, and it came at a big cost, with Ricky-Jade Jones sustaining ankle ligament damage which is likely to mean we have seen the last of him for this season. With mainstays like Eric Smith already on the sidelines it was a given that midfielder James Sands, after suffering a suspected broken nose trying to head home a clinching third goal in the second half, would just be patched up to continue. “I told him I thought his nose was already crooked before,” quipped Blessin.

Yet it wasn’t all blood and sweat under rainy northern skies. The opening goal was a wonder of fluidity, with Jackson Irvine and Arkadiusz Pyrka combining at speed and Sinani dummying to fool the defence and allow space for Saliakas to drive into the top corner. The right-back might have had another to seal the deal after Leweling’s goal, crashing in from the edge of the area again, but the ball had already crossed the byline before Lars Ritzka could deliver the cross.

Still, the Millerntor will have its part to play. “When you talk about home games, that has to be a major asset,” Blessin recognised. “We have to use that atmosphere to our advantage – we simply didn’t make enough of it last year, or this year either.” The coach said the locked-in-ness of the home fans, roaring approval for challenges from the start against Stuttgart, “warmed my heart”. This was an overdue reminder that unity remains St Pauli’s greatest strength in defying the odds, again.

Talking points

Wolfsburg may be underachievers, but they were unlucky not to take anything from Dortmund on Saturday, looking the more likely to hit a winner at the Volkswagen Arena before the back-in-form Serhou Guirassy bagged an undeserved winner for the visitors, which took them to within three points of Bayern at the top overnight. Sporting director Sebastian Kehl used the good mood of the moment to remind captain Nico Schlotterbeck that “we want a decision as soon as possible” on the big new contract he has been offered.

Serhou Guirassy struck for Dortmund to deny Wolfsburg. Photograph: Christopher Neundorf/EPA

We said a three-point gap overnight – because that expanded to six, not entirely unexpectedly, with Bayern’s comfortable win over Hoffenheim in Sunday’s late game. The neutral had hoped for more but Kevin Akpoguma’s red card for the visitors a little more than a 15 minutes in for fouling Luis Díaz, leading to Harry Kane’s first penalty of the afternoon, coloured what came next. The 10-man visitors did actually level through Andrej Kramaric but a double blow of two goals in 30-odd seconds before the break, a generously awarded second penalty converted by Kane and another by the outstanding Díaz, on his way to a hat-trick, paved the way to a 5-1 win.

Elsewhere a pair of 1-1 draws coloured the matchday; Leverkusen’s recent return to form – with four straight wins in all competition – came to a grinding halt at Borussia Mönchengladbach, reminding Kasper Hjulmand of the pressure that exists to make the top four (“we didn’t do enough,” bemoaned the Dane), while Albert Riera’s debut as Eintracht Frankfurt coach saw them take a draw at Union Berlin, despite leading going into the final five minutes. “They need to rediscover what it’s like to dominate,” stated a typically forthright Riera.