Marked for Marwin Schmitz
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. 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 dugout1 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” St. Pauli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market1 Feb 2027
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at St. Pauli until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market1 Feb 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at St. Pauli heard it as anything else.
Squad1 Feb 2027
48 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words exchanged at St. Pauli
Joel Chima Fujita 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eric Smith 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 targets1 Feb 2027
St. Pauli asked and Waasland-Beveren said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Dec 2026
St. Pauli win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. VfB Stuttgart will replay every second of the added time for a week.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” St. Pauli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.98 for the rest of it.
Market21 Dec 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mathias Pereira Lage wants continental football; whether St. Pauli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad21 Dec 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A row about effort at St. Pauli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eric Smith was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match19 Dec 2026
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The terraces21 Dec 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.
Match19 Dec 2026
The drought breaks for St. Pauli
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and VfB Stuttgart were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match10 Oct 2026
4 matches without a win for St. Pauli
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around St. Pauli are no longer polite ones.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Eric Smith 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Marwin Schmitz is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Market12 Oct 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Kevin Pohl is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market12 Oct 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Lukas Meier has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
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 Karol Mets was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A late step up for Ben Voll
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Match10 Oct 2026
St. Pauli rescue it on 93 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 93. Union Berlin had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.