St. Pauli elated after earning first point: "We've arrived in the Bundesliga."

A tactical switch from trainer Alexander Blessing (from a 3-5-2 to a 3-4-3) helped newly promoted German Hanseatic city-state side FC St. Pauli earn their first point of the young Bundesliga campaign last night. Hamburg's Kiezkicker turned in an excellent performance against heavily-favored RB Leipzig at the Millerntor in round four's "capper match". Blessin's team could have even won the match if they converted their far more frequent socring chances.

A front-three attacking trident of Elias Saad, Johannes Eggestein, and Olapado Afolayan generated plenty of offensive pop. Both Saad and Afolayan made public appeals for more playing time following encouraging performances off the bench last week's away loss at Augsburg. In his post-match comments, Blessin made clear that he had heard the duo. 

"That the pair of them are angry is totally understandable," Blessin told German broadcaster DAZN, "They may be so. What's important is that they understand what [specifically] is important for our game. Both did us a lot of good. There's no reason for me to work against that. I don't wish to re-open that topic. What's important is that we worked hard and intensively against Leipzig." 

Speaking in the mixed zone, Afolayan declared himself "happy to be playing again". Captain Jackson Irvine labelled last night's result "a liberation". Lead striker Eggestein and keeper Nikola Vasilj - while emphasizing that they felt the team deserved more than a 0-0 draw - declared themselves relieved that a significant hurdle had been cleared. 

"It was an insane game," starting right wingback Philipp Treu - who also contributed an excellent match - added, "Now we can say that we've arrived in the Bundesliga."

"We've landed on Bundesliga level," Blessin concurred, "but it's important that we don't stray from this level. This was the basis [level]. This was the benchmark."