Excitement in the promotion race
St. Pauli surprisingly stumbles over KSC
April 6, 2024, 10:40 p.m
There are only two points left: St. Pauli surprisingly loses at KSC. The second division leaders were able to make up for an early deficit, but did not recover from the second goal. A dismissal causes discussions.
Second division leaders FC St. Pauli suffered their third defeat of the season when they were outnumbered and inadvertently made the situation at the top more exciting again. The hapless Hamburg team surprisingly lost 1:2 (1:1) to Karlsruher SC in the evening game. Thanks to second Holstein Kiel’s 4-0 win in Nuremberg in the afternoon, the gap between the two northern clubs is now only two points.
In front of 33,000 spectators in the sold-out BBBank Wildpark, Marcel Franke (2nd minute) and Paul Nebel (69th) scored the goals for the hosts, St. Pauli’s Jackson Irvine (37th) had equalized in the meantime. Guest defender Hauke Wahl received a yellow-red card (77th).
The game didn’t start at all to the liking of the Hamburg leader. Defender Franke benefited from a ball parried forward by goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj and put KSC in the lead. St. Pauli were undeterred and came back through Irvine’s header from a corner kick.
However, things were once again unfortunate for the league leaders as the second half progressed. Much to the guests’ disappointment, the supposed second goal by Australian captain Irvine did not count because two Hamburg players were previously offside. Karlsruhe’s Nebel scored the surprising opening goal after clever combinations. Wahl then weakened the Kiez club by sending him off. St. Pauli’s Marcel Hartel missed a great chance to equalize in stoppage time, and KSC player Marvin Wanitzek failed to hit the crossbar shortly afterwards.