“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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
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.
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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Marco Bergmann to a room that had heard them before.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Marco Bergmann after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. St. Pauli lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Abdoulie Ceesay's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at St. Pauli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
Player ratingsAn afternoon Martijn Kaars will want back
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutTaichi Hara knocks on the manager's door
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Ben Voll
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
7.68, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Palermo have kept their man, and St. Pauli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Abdoulie Ceesay has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Zaid Tchibara and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Marco Bergmann kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 5 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atalanta have kept their man, and St. Pauli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at St. Pauli than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
A strip of cloth that decides nothing on the pitch and tells the dressing room whose opinion counts. The manager has made a statement without making one.
St. Pauli spent the window trying to move Abdoulie Ceesay on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
St. Pauli asked and SC Freiburg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
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.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Marco Bergmann after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
St. Pauli have gone to SC Freiburg with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
St. Pauli asked and Austin FC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Juan David Moreno has just signed for St. Pauli, and for once the answer mattered.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Juan David Moreno is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
A new face in his position, and Mathias Pereira Lage suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. St. Pauli have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
Jan Bürger 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.
St. Pauli asked and RB Leipzig said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$4.2M on the table at Sanfrecce Hiroshima. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
VfB Stuttgart paid $6.7M and St. Pauli took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Eric Smith has gone, the accounts have $6.7M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
St. Pauli had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Palermo, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. St. Pauli will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and VfB Stuttgart waiting with a shirt. Nobody at St. Pauli is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
St. Pauli asked and TSG Hoffenheim said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$10.3M was the most the club would pay and Club Brugge were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Venezia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jan Bürger is living that version at St. Pauli, and it tends to show in the first month.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Andreas Braun 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jan Schulz has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Markus Friedrich has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
In brief
SquadWords at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
The offer went to Club Brugge this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Eric Smith 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Arsenal have kept their man, and St. Pauli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A loan enquiry to Palermo: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad3 Aug 2026
5 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at St. Pauli, and both men came out saying it was fine.