FC St. Pauli

Jos Luhukay's side made the long journey south to Heidenheim last Sunday hoping to break the club's hoodoo at the Voith Arena. As on the previous four outings, however, they came up short. Nothing new there, then. Despite putting in a much better display in the 1-1 draw against Arminia Bielefeld in the previous home game, when they looked a changed side after the interval and richly deserved the point, the Boys in Brown had a day to forget and returned home empty-handed.

That Heidenheim defeat was the team's sixth game without a win, a drought stretching back to the 1-0 success at SC Paderborn in early March. Now six points and 31 goals worse off than third-placed Paderborn with just four games left to play, the main priority for the Boys in Brown in the run-in is to bring their barren run to an end and then finish the season as well as possible.

Our guests for the penultimate home game of the season are Jahn Regensburg, who after a fifth-place finish last season are having another largely worry-free campaign in their second season since gaining promotion. After a relatively poor start that saw them collect just one win in their first five games, Regensburg ushered in the turnaround with a crushing 5-0 victory at HSV in mid-September. Achim Beierlorzer's side secured their second-division status earlier this month and travel to Hamburg with just one defeat in their last nine matches and unbeaten in four. Not content with that, they now want more.

For Regensburg, more means getting a result at the Millerntor, preferably a win. To make sure that doesn't happen, the onus is on the Boys in Brown to shake off the effects of the last few weeks, and especially the defeat at Heidenheim, and finally get back to winning ways with a much-improved performance against Jahn. If Luhukay's side do break free from their shackles, they would not only climb above Regensburg in the table, but also claim their 300^th win since the second tier of German football has been organised as a single division.

Photo: Eibner