St. Pauli take down Hoffenheim and win 1-0 thanks to Baumann's mistake
| Noah Weißhaupt celebrating. | Photo: Selim Sudheimer / Getty Images |
St. Pauli have finally put an end to their winless streak: after 6 winless games in a row, the team from Hamburg were able to take down Hoffenheim! Noah Weißhaupt scored his 1st goal for the club and secured 3 very important points for St. Pauli.
It was a slow first half: Hoffenheim were not able to find their feet over the first 45 minutes, only St. Pauli had good chances. St. Pauli captain Irvine had the first shot on target after a free kick in the 4th minute.
Attacking midfielder Sinani had another good shot on target in minute 27 to get the fans at the Millerntor Stadium going - if you had to guess which team was playing their first season back in the Bundesliga after 13 years, you'd pick Hoffenheim at that point!
St. Pauli generally was the better team in the first half, but the halftime score of 0-0 was also fair, considering St. Pauli's chances were not of the highest quality.
6 minutes into the second half, St. Pauli found a moment of pure footballing brilliance with Treu taking advantage of a rare Baumann mistake:
He scooped the ball over Hoffenheim's goalkeeper before laying it up perfectly for his teammate Weißhaupt to put St. Pauli in front - it was his first goal for the club. Not the best timing from Baumann, considering he's in contention for the “vacant” spot in goal in Nagelsmann's Germany team right now.
After the goal, St. Pauli kept on having similar chances to the ones from the first half, but at this point they were not the ones who needed to score anymore. Hoffenheim only found some good form in the last 10 minutes of the game, where they almost forced St. Pauli to an own goal after a sharp cross in the 92nd minute.
In the end, Hoffenheim “woke up” too late and lost a crucial game against a now direct rival in the relegation battle. St. Pauli still rank 15th in the table, while Hoffenheim hold still in 13th; The difference however: both teams are only seperated by 1 point, with St. Pauli having a better goal difference at the moment.
It seems like the relegation battle in 2024/25 is going to be pretty exciting up until the very end!
