Eintracht Frankfurt at home, 19.12.2011

The last match before the winter break saw (probably) the division’s biggest club and one of Germany’s best fanscenes come to the Millerntor. On the back of the performance in Ingolstadt, I certainly didn’t fancy St. Pauli’s chances too much against the team that’s led the league for much of the season so far, though having lost two weeks prior against 1860 Munich and only drawn the week before with Fuerth, it probably wasn’t the worst time to play Eintracht Frankfurt.

I had the early shift at work, so I got to the fanladen early doors at about 5.30. It was cold, very cold. Having met a couple of guys over from Glasgow and their two sons on Sunday in the Jolly Roger, I’d provisionally planned to met them there and help with their hunt for tickets. After catching up with everyone and warming up my hands with beer out the fridge, the guys from Glasgow never showed up so I with a few other Breitseitler headed in to secure our regular spot. We always stand just behind the goal in the Suedkurve and always manage to fit in. But getting in early means you can get a few steps forward and actually see a bit of the game instead of having to spend 90 minutes in the mosh pit that is the top step. Some prefer to stay at the fanladen and drink beer (or beer that doesn’t cost 3.50 euro a pop) until 20mins before kick-off and then take their chances for finding a spot, but for a big game like this I was sure things would fill up pretty early. As it happened, an hour before kick-off it was actually still pretty empty. The time passed quickly, however, and before long Hell’s Bells was ringing out.

Due to the green smoke bombs used in last season’s “High Again” choreo at the Millerntor (Google it if you’ve not seen it, it was probably the best from an away support all season) , Eintracht unfortunately weren’t allowed anything in the way of flags, banners etc. into their corner. This didn’t stop them from getting some flares in, however, and they pulled off a very impressive show. I’d estimate there were about 8-10 flares all going at one time, with the front fence packed. There was no chanting to be heard from their corner, but optically at least it was impressive and good to see that everything was kept within the away block (see Dynamo Dresden). Beyond that, however, I was (once again) very disappointed with Eintracht on the support front. The self-declared “Randalemeister” (“masters of rioting”) might be good in a fist-fight and pull off some visually impressive displays, but in the three times I’ve seen them against St. Pauli (home and away) I’ve always been disappointed at the volume of support. The only chant I heard the whole game from the away corner was “gays.” It’s interesting that in recent years there have been concerted efforts to eradicate racism from football in Germany, with some success, but that except for a few examples (FCSP, Werder Bremen, RS Leipzig, Tennis-Borussia Berlin) homophobia seems to be almost universally accepted. Eintracht are a good example of this, in Dresden chanting “Nazi Schweine” (“Nazi pigs”) at racist Dynamo fans but then homophobically abusing St. Pauli. Hopefully the “football against homophobia” campaign will go on to make the same and even better advances than football against racism.

In the home end, the support was decent. It started with a choreo of a big cardboard cut-out smoking a giant spliff, above a banner saying “Montags weghaschen” (“weed away Monday matches”) once again in protest at teams having to play on Monday to satisfy television companies. Whilst home games on a Monday are, for me personally, ok, having to take two days off work to follow your team playing away is a disgrace. The German FA has completely abandoned its pledge to only have Monday games between teams no more than 300km from each other and so it’s important that we do not allow the current situation to become normalised. A good choreo and an important message. Throughout the game the support was adequate, though not amazing. Wir sind Zecken was, unusually this season for a home game, sung and was very loud. Standing right in the middle block it’s sometimes tricky to judge the atmosphere as a whole, but as against Ingolstadt it seemed to me to go through good and bad phases. Based on the team’s performance today however, it’s hard to know what else they would need to do to get 20,000 singing for 90 minutes straight...

With that I’ve already given away how the game went. It was a very strong performance from St. Pauli, none more so than Philipp Tschauner. He had a few very big saves to make, but this was always down to good play from Eintracht as opposed to bad defending from St. Pauli. The first half was fairly even, with Fabio Morena slotting home after a goalmouth scramble from a corner at around the half-hour mark. The second-half saw a bit more Eintracht pressure before the second goal, for which massive credit has to go to Fin Bartels and Max Kruse. 2 against 4, as Bartels ran towards goal he looked like he had nowhere to go. Kruse’s movement in the middle was outstanding though and he managed to ghost between two Frankfurt defenders and get on the end of Bartels’ excellent cross. The Suedkurve went absolutely tonto as the ball hit the back of the net. The remainder of the game followed a similar pattern, with Frankfurt pressurising and creating the odd chance, but not being able to convert. Had St. Pauli only been one goal up it would’ve been very nervy, but the two goal cushion meant there were not too many squeaky bums in the closing phase of the game. Tschauner unfortunately injured his shoulder with a few minutes to go, which as subsequently revealed has to be operated on. Fortunately he now has 6 weeks off during the winter break in which to recover, so hopefully he’ll be back up to full speed by then.

The latest in a line of “controversies” also happened in the second half, with the throwing of a streamer which did not unroll as Frankfurt took a corner. This hit Pirmin Schwegler, the Frankfurt captain, and he went to the ground like there was a sniper in the business seats. Unfortunately this has been the cause of a lot of debate already and St. Pauli may see themselves subject to another hefty fine from the German FA, as well as a possible ban for the fan who threw the offending streamer. All I will say is that around two-hundred streamers were thrown during the game, all with no problem. That the one streamer that didn’t unroll happened to hit a player is an unfortunate coincidence. However, one streamer weighs about as much as a small chocolate bar, and does not warrant a fully grown man lying on the floor for two minutes. Hopefully logic and seasonal goodwill shall prevail in the FA’s ruling, but I’m not optimistic.

All in all however, this game was a very successful way to end a year full of high and low points for FC St. Pauli. Wins against city rivals h$v and Rostock will live long in the memory, along with several other memorable games such as Cologne, 1860 Munich and Duisburg at home. However, we have also been relegated and suffered the loss of two club legends, Marcel Eger and Florian Lechner, in disgraceful circumstances for which the club should still be ashamed of itself. Having had a great start to the 2011-12 campaign, the feeling around the club and in the fanscene is nonetheless overwhelmingly positive at the moment. As is often the case in football; bad moments make the good moments even better.

Summary? Logic is overrated.