We know we can do it!
Saturday, 21. September 2019, 12:56 Uhr
Matchday 7 takes FC St. Pauli to VfL Osnabrück (Sunday, 1330 CET). Six days after the spectacular home win over HSV, the Boys in Brown will be going flat out to secure another three points against the newly promoted side.
On Monday evening we witnessed one of those special games at the Millerntor that will go down in the history of the club in the category "legendary win". On the one hand, because we showed our rivals from across the city that they are by no means unbeatable. On the other, and above all, because players and fans gelled into a formidable unit from start to finish in a local derby that stirred the emotions – 26,526 people carrying St. Pauli to victory in performance full of passion and fight. A game that will live long in the memory!
And suddenly everything is different. The hope is back! The confidence levels and fighting spirit are off the scale! And this is the feeling we have when we go to Osnabrück. A game not only the players are fired up for, but also the 1,600 fans who will accompany them to Lower Saxony.
Tickets for the match sold out within a minute. Understandable, as for many fans it will be a new ground, given we haven't played there since 30 January 2009. The team that day was also made up of derby winners, by the way, they just didn't know it at the time. The game ended in a 2-2 draw, Rouwen Hennings and Florian Bruns getting the goals for the Boys in Brown. Osnabrück ended up going down, whereas we finished the season in eighth place.
No one is talking about relegation in Osnabrück, however, because Daniel Thioune's newly promoted side have started their first second-division campaign after an eight-year absence with a healthy portion of confidence. The Lower Saxony outfit sit eighth in the table on nine points, one in front of the Boys in Brown, who are up to tenth thanks to victory in the derby.
Osnabrück have won three and lost three so far this season. One of the players to watch is Marcos Alvarez, whose four goals in five league matches (plus one in the DFB Cup) make him the most prolific striker in the second division along with Dimitrios Diamantakos, Philipp Hoffmann (Karlsruhe), Sonny Kittel (HSV) and Fabian Klos (Bielefeld). Unlike his rivals, however, his goals have come in just 196 minutes of game time – an impressive strike rate.
Yet regardless of any statistics, on Sunday the players are focused on one thing and one thing only – starting the game with energy, application and confidence. We know we can do it! We know no one's unbeatable. And, above all, we know we can win together.
Photos: Witters
