Hansa Rostock – FC St. Pauli 1:0 – Frustration, disappointment and a destroyed mouse

FC St. Pauli deservedly lost against Hansa Rostock with 0:1. The team showed one of the weakest performances of the season and could not really be dangerous offensively at any time. On the other hand, Hansa Rostock managed to expose FCSP’s weak points. An analysis full of frustration, written with fingers dancing the tango.
(Cover picture: Fotostand/Voelker/via ImagoImages/via OneFootball)

There is also a travelogue of Debbie’s trip to Rostock. It’s not pretty.

The line-up

A trio was new in the starting line-up of FC St. Pauli: Luca Zander, Finn Ole Becker and Afeez Aremu came in for Adam Dźwigała (bench), Jackson Irvine (not in the squad) and Eric Smith (injured).

Hansa Rostock even made four changes. Hanno Behrens, Nico Neidhart, Lukas Fröde and Calogero Rizzuto came in for Julian Riedel, Björn Rother, Pascal Breier and Haris Duljevic.

Hansa coach Jens Härtel is known for always adjusting his teams enormously well to their respective opponents. Therefore, it was surprising how poorly the team coped with FC St. Pauli’s style of play in the first leg. However, the team had worked out a suitable formation for the return match. The team played in a 3-5-2, the system with which FCSP had the most problems during the season. And so it came to pass…

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Man orientation, high pressing = problems for FCSP

FC St. Pauli’s great strength is usually the build-up of play. Here, Leart Paqarada and the two eights are of central importance, as they can create connections to the front. Hansa Rostock, therefore, chose a very simple, but also enormously successful approach: The two eights were closely manhandled (by Behrens and Rhein) and the two wing defenders (Rizzuto and Neidhart) aggressively ran at the FC St. Pauli wing defenders. Here, once again, the opposing three-man defence paid off. Because the wing defenders can only run high if they don’t give away any space behind them. With three centre-backs, this security is available because they can easily push against the two FCSP attackers to the outer lane when their own wing-back runs high.

But of course, the story of the game is not over. Because if space is scarce somewhere, it opens up somewhere else on the field. A very pragmatic solution is long balls. In the first half, they flew in abundance towards Simon Makienok. But the positioning for the second ball was anything but optimal. FCSP’s eights, Hartel and Becker, were positioned too deep to play on second balls. Another option could have been for FCSP to move enormously wide in attack. In doing so, Kyereh should have moved up front to form a three-man line there, which would then pull the three centre-backs wide. That was only attempted in the second half.

However, the space in the build-up to the game was basically also available in the central midfield. Afeez Aremu had no direct opponent and could move freely in the six-man area. If FC St. Pauli had tried to play more through him, the two direct opponents of Hartel and Becker would have reacted automatically or Hansa would have had to move deeper quickly because the strikers would have had to get behind the ball.
You notice that there is a lot of subjunctive in this paragraph. Afeez Aremu is and remains a very strong defensive six. He still lacks the ability to build-up play, to recognise that he has spaces and to use them for himself.

No concept

But even if FC St. Pauli had managed to use the spaces centrally, it would not have solved the problem in the defensive work (which is why I would like to emphasise here that Aremu cannot be held exclusively responsible for the slack offensive play). Hansa Rostock certainly took a close look at FCSP’s game against Hannover 96 and analysed where there were spaces in switching moments – behind the full-backs, namely. Again and again, the really strong Svante Ingelsson moved into just that space after winning the ball and Hansa could be dangerous over it several times in the first half. Only thanks to an outstanding Nikola Vasilj in goal did we go into the break with a 0:0.

FC St. Pauli was defensively susceptible and offensively with some scenes, but mostly with question marks rather than exclamation marks. The offensive was rather haphazard. There was no clear concept, which Marcel Hartel said quite clearly into the Sky microphone after the game.
FCSP tried a lot of things but didn’t really pull anything off. A style of play usually only becomes really strong when it is radically enforced. Especially the spreading of the attackers could have been a good option, but it was not implemented consistently. It sounds very trite and also unimaginative in terms of analysis, but: The team was unimaginative on the offensive. And not radical enough in implementing the concepts that were actually there.

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FC St. Pauli takes itself out of the game

One option I had already wished for in the first half would have been to drop Aremu back between the two centre-backs. This would have given Beifus and Medić space because they could not have been tackled by either the two attackers (there were only two of them) or the wing-backs (they would have been tied up by wing-backs). This tactical behaviour in the build-up was one of the keys to FC St. Pauli’s success in the Ingolstadt game. It would have been interesting to see how Hansa would have reacted to this.

Instead, a complete change was made for the second half: With James Lawrence, a third centre-back came into the game. FC St. Pauli mirrored the formation of Hansa Rostock and also operated with a three-man backline. However, it was not primarily about their own offensive play, but about stopping Hansa’s many successful deep runs on the flanks. This was successful at the beginning of the second half. But that was the only good thing about the change.

For it was certainly anything but a playful treat that FC St. Pauli offered in the first half. But with the change to a three-man backline, FCSP took away all options in the offensive. Their own game came to a complete standstill because there was no relief whatsoever, as Timo Schultz said after the game. And in a way, it was also a taste of what happens when the six-man falls between the centre-backs because the formation is then similar.

The following lines are particularly painful: The lead for Hansa Rostock in the 59th minute was highly deserved. Because of the many high-calibre chances that Hansa already had in the first half, but also because FCSP could not show itself offensively at all at the beginning of the second half.

Rather unusually, but also unsurprisingly, FC St. Pauli went into reverse five minutes after going behind and switched back to their 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond with the substitution of Rico Benatelli. With him on the pitch, FCSP regained much more control of the game. This was certainly partly due to the fact that the opponents now retreated very far, but Benatelli always wants to have the ball and the spaces were there on the six.

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Much, much frustration

There was, however, no race to catch up, no determined fight against the defeat. At least it was not apparent. And that is certainly the biggest point of criticism, which I am writing down here in my frustration a few hours after the final whistle. I’m having to tango with my fingers on the touchpad because I destroyed my computer mouse in the 85th minute. I slammed it down on the table because Luca Zander (it could have happened in many subsequent scenes) moved with the speed of a wet punching bag to take a throw-in of his own. When trailing. Shortly before the end. Against Rostock. That was too much for me.

There was no sign of a comeback, of an attempt to turn the game around. Defeats are always very hard for me to bear anyway. But in a game against Hansa Rostock, a game in which we could have taken the lead in the standings again at least overnight with just one point, it was unbearable and simply very disappointing. The defeat was nothing but highly deserved. You owe me a computer mouse, FC St. Pauli!

There. Enough moaning. Enough grumbling. The game is lost, the performance was shite. It can’t be changed now. That’s why there’s little point in getting angry about it for too long. St. Pauli is the only possibility and that’s why we have to look ahead. Next weekend Werder Bremen come to the Millerntor. Simple mathematics is enough to realise that with a win, the dreaming continues. And the current frustration can be forgotten.

Keep moving forward!

//Tim (translation by Arne)

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