Football Season Guide

St. Pauli missed out on promotion last season despite leading the table into the new year. Too many dropped points in the second half of the campaign saw them eventually fall to a fifth-place finish. Despite the disappointing end to last season, St.Pauli has made huge strides under coach Timo Schultz since he took charge in the summer of 2020. The coach has got the side challenging up the top end of the table and will be hoping to go one better this season. The Hamburg-based club will firstly have to cope with the loss of two key attacking players, Guido Burgstaller and Daniel-Kofi Kyereh have both moved on and with 33 goals and 20 assists between them last season, the pair will be hard to replace. The signing of former Werder Bremen forward Johannes Eggestein could help to alleviate that void. As good as St.Pauli was going forward last term, defensively they were vulnerable at times, Schultz has looked to address this in the transfer market, bringing in solid young centre-back David Nemeth from Mainz and Greek international right-back Manolis Saliakas. Expect St.Pauli to be strong in the midfield area again, Aremu, Smith, and Hartel remain, while the commanding Irvine is joined by versatile fellow Aussie Connor Metcalfe. Another strength is likely to be their home form where they have excelled in recent years, the stadium is always buzzing at the Millerntor and can be like a twelfth man at times.