Marked for Nirley
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Nov 2026
Chastening afternoon for St. Pauli
A 0‑3 beating by Mainz 05 was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Match30 Nov 2026
Every point is an argument now for St. Pauli
Position 16 and 8 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Match28 Nov 2026
6 matches without a win for St. Pauli
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around St. Pauli are no longer polite ones.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; St. Pauli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Andréas Hountondji falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Nirley and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Marco Bergmann left the room before anybody could ask which.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match18 Nov 2026
Köln ended it 1‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” St. Pauli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match21 Nov 2026
The wait goes on for St. Pauli
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Andréas Hountondji falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at St. Pauli
Nirley and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Marco Bergmann chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Youssoupha Niang, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Ricky-Jade Jones: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Pauli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market16 Nov 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Karol Mets and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
“I did not go to Werder Bremen to sit and watch. I want to come back to St. Pauli and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Bayer Leverkusen in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A wage question at St. Pauli
Ricky-Jade Jones has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Home comforts ahead for St. Pauli
Bayer Leverkusen, position 3, come to town on Saturday. Nobody will call it a big game and nobody at the club will be treating it as anything else.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Martijn Kaars plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Age has not caught Jackson Irvine yet — 7.99
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.99 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at St. Pauli
Kosuke Nakamura and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Muhammad Dahaba is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The terraces19 Oct 2026
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match17 Oct 2026
Three points for St. Pauli, 2‑0 the final word against Heidenheim in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A row about effort at St. Pauli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andréas Hountondji was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Nirley is not the player he was
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 38 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at St. Pauli, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Abdoulie Ceesay is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at St. Pauli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andréas Hountondji was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Nirley in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Pauli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Taichi Hara asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ricky-Jade Jones has written the date down.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Nirley remains an outsider
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at St. Pauli would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at St. Pauli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Match3 Oct 2026
3 matches without a goal for St. Pauli
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Martijn Kaars, and the manager let it.
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Borussia Dortmund, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Nirley and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Marco Bergmann after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad5 Oct 2026
International break empties St. Pauli
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at St. Pauli
Martijn Kaars and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kosuke Nakamura, and the manager let it.
Match26 Sep 2026
Eintracht Frankfurt left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andréas Hountondji is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad28 Sep 2026
11 new faces, and St. Pauli are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Marco Bergmann after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Looking ahead28 Sep 2026
A test against the best for St. Pauli
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Borussia Dortmund.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Austria Wien have kept their man, and St. Pauli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match19 Sep 2026
Köln left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A row about effort at St. Pauli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andréas Hountondji was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad21 Sep 2026
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Karol Mets
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Pauli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch21 Sep 2026
“I watch every St. Pauli game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Werder Bremen runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Marco Bergmann to a room that had heard them before.