Marked for Samuel Klein
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Jul 2029
39 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. St. Pauli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market30 Jul 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around St. Pauli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market30 Jul 2029
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at St. Pauli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets30 Jul 2029
$5.2M on the table at Bayern Munich. 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 targets30 Jul 2029
RB Leipzig wanted more than $3.7M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Market30 Jul 2029
The bid was some way short and St. Pauli did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom30 Jul 2029
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Zakaria El Ouahdi has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Ørjan Nyland and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets30 Jul 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayern Munich have kept their man, and St. Pauli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Mar 2029
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Vitinha takes the match ball home
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match17 Mar 2029
The drought breaks for St. Pauli
9 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Preußen Münster were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Ørjan Nyland and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings19 Mar 2029
A masterclass from Vitinha
Marked 9.56 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match17 Mar 2029
It finished 3‑1, and it was Vitinha’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to St. Pauli.
Squad19 Mar 2029
A row about effort at St. Pauli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Moussa Sylla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
“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.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Player ratings
Erik Ahlstrand runs at them all day
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Market
Vitinha linked with a move away
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces1 Jan 2029
The mood at St. Pauli has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad1 Jan 2029
A fracture rules Frank Krämer out for 73 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason St. Pauli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout1 Jan 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom1 Jan 2029
The silence upstairs is getting loud at St. Pauli
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market1 Jan 2029
Samuel Klein 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 St. Pauli can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.89, and nobody on the pitch better.
Market1 Jan 2029
Valentin Antov wants to know where this is going
“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 St. Pauli hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Ørjan Nyland 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.
Match30 Dec 2028
Still nobody has beaten St. Pauli
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match11 Nov 2028
0‑4 to Preußen Münster, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market13 Nov 2028
“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.
Match11 Nov 2028
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.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Rubén Del Campo 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.
The dugout13 Nov 2028
Ørjan Nyland 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.
Market13 Nov 2028
Jannik Robatsch is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at St. Pauli has been clear about where Jannik Robatsch stands, which is more than many ever get.
Boardroom13 Nov 2028
Nobody left the St. Pauli dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout13 Nov 2028
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Christoph Wolf after 0‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market6 Mar 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at St. Pauli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” St. Pauli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Karol Mets commits to St. Pauli for another 2 years.
Squad6 Mar 2028
A row about effort at St. Pauli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mathias Pereira Lage was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Words exchanged at St. Pauli
Marwin Schmitz 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 ratings6 Mar 2028
Nobody on the pitch touched Ferran Torres
7.78, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. St. Pauli had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.