Marked for Fin Stevens
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Jan 2027
17 matches without a win for St. Pauli
The run now stands at 17, and the questions being asked around St. Pauli are no longer polite ones.
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Tiago Tomás beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 29. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad11 Jan 2027
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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
$970.0K on the table at Heidenheim. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The deal with SC Freiburg is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Match9 Jan 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Danel Sinani 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Danel Sinani has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at St. Pauli.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Dec 2026
No end in sight to St. Pauli's wait for a win
13 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at St. Pauli has to find a result from somewhere.
Match12 Dec 2026
No clean sheets in sight for St. Pauli
8 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joel Chima Fujita 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.
Match12 Dec 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Loan watch14 Dec 2026
“I watch every St. Pauli game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Union Berlin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Market14 Dec 2026
He is 20, and nobody at St. Pauli signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Dec 2026
Position 16, 9 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market7 Dec 2026
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Union Berlin hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match5 Dec 2026
0‑1 to Hamburger SV, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Oliver Burke gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” René Sommer after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Diego Castillo and Union Berlin agree another 3 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Kayque and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Nov 2026
8 saves: Ben Voll was the team
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match31 Oct 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Karol Mets was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match31 Oct 2026
Bayer Leverkusen left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market2 Nov 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Connor Metcalfe has his answer from St. Pauli; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout2 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
8 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.
Loan watch2 Nov 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 5 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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Squad
Luca Philipp wants out of the dugout
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The dugout
Luca Philipp has become a man the manager trusts
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Union Berlin may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match31 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Union Berlin's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Union Berlin has to find a result from somewhere.
Match31 Oct 2026
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Union Berlin heard it as anything else.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Oliver Burke 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 Union Berlin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout2 Nov 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 René Sommer to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Aug 2026
Andrej Ilić hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Union Berlin can pretend not to have heard.
Market31 Aug 2026
RB Leipzig come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Union Berlin did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayer Leverkusen have kept their man, and Union Berlin go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match29 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Eintracht Frankfurt, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Union Berlin
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout31 Aug 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 0‑1 René Sommer left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.