FC St. Pauli

Sunday's game at Regensburg was the first time the St. Pauli boss had opted to start with two strikers in the current campaign: "I had the feeling it was the right tactic for the situation. We need time and space to unfurl our game, but Regensburg are a side who press and push up without let-up. With the 4-4-2, we wanted to bypass their pressing lines faster and then push up ourselves. It was a good idea, but it didn't quite come off. We bypassed them all right in phases, but we didn't push up quite as well because we were forever tied up with defensive duties." Nevertheless, Kauczinski believes his team's performance represented a step forward to a certain degree: "We're glad we can play different systems to suit the opposition, but we need both options. One system on its own is no panacea."

Sometimes a coach isn't able to influence things on the pitch as he would like because of circumstances beyond his control, Kauczinski continued. And on Sunday afternoon a number of things came together all at once. Richard Neudecker went over on his ankle early on. Daniel Buballa complained of feeling unwell. Christopher Buchtmann was struggling with his thigh and Philipp Ziereis was sick at half-time. And Marvin Knoll was another who felt a little queasy during the interval: "We'll probably never find out exactly what it was," Kauczinski said. "We aren't ruling food out, but there's a 24-hour virus going round at the moment, so it could have been something sudden. It was a combination of things. That a player throws up is nothing unusual in itself. It can happen due to tension or nerves, for example. I'm just glad Zier gritted his teeth and got on with it."

As a result, the touchline was a hive of activity: "I had a steady stream of lads coming over to be substituted and then all of a sudden there was another one indicating he might have to come off. After the interval, Zier kept giving signals whether he was OK or not. I had Florian Carstens come over to the bench, for example, but I kept having to wait. I didn't want to make the last substitution too early. It's obviously not so good when someone throws up on the pitch. I would have liked to introduce more momentum down the flanks, of course, and we could have used some relief up front. You get days like that, though, when nothing comes together perfectly. And we've lost games like that in the past, so from that point of view we can live with the point." 

Photos: Witters