Marked for Marwin Schmitz
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market22 May 2028
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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Mattéo Bahoya 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Marwin Schmitz and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout22 May 2028
King Manu 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.
Market22 May 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mathias Pereira Lage’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout22 May 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Farid Alfa-Ruprecht trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Loan watch22 May 2028
30 appearances away from home and 5 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
The dugout22 May 2028
Karol Mets has been promised minutes
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 Karol Mets has written the date down.
Market22 May 2028
3 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what St. Pauli could get for him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces3 Apr 2028
Supporters organise against the St. Pauli board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom3 Apr 2028
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.
Boardroom3 Apr 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Lukas Schröder has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad3 Apr 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Fran Villalba commits to St. Pauli for another 4 years.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Mathias Pereira Lage 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.
Match1 Apr 2028
A 1‑0 win over Köln, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Marked 8.10. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at St. Pauli.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Lennart Karl is the month’s best young player
At 20 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. St. Pauli will try not to make too much of it.
Squad3 Apr 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets10 Jan 2028
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. St. Pauli have done the hard part with Bayern Munich, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
“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.
Market10 Jan 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Martijn Kaars and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mathias Pereira Lage 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.
Transfer targets10 Jan 2028
St. Pauli asked and SC Paderborn said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match8 Jan 2028
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Match10 Jan 2028
Halfway: St. Pauli sit in position 15
16 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marwin Schmitz and St. Pauli agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.