FC St. Pauli

Eric Smith was the major absentee on the team sheet at Kaiserslautern, a minor groin problem ruling out the Swedish midfielder. Afeez Aremu came in to make his first appearance of the season, as did Carlo Boukhalfa, who got the nod over Igor Matanović.

The Betzenberg crowd witnessed a sluggish start to the proceedings. Kaiserslautern sat back and freed up voids for the Boys in Brown to combine their way towards the opposition goal. Yet it was the home side who exploited the space on offer in the ninth minute, captain Jean Zimmer playing a simple one-two before delivering a pinpoint cross for Terrence Boyd to outjump Manolis Saliakas and head the opening goal.

St. Pauli were the busier of the two teams but struggled to create any clear-cut opportunities. After a short drinks break, they upped the tempo and fashioned the best chance of the game to that point for Jackson Irvine, who came within a whisker of notching his third headed goal of the season from a Hartel corner on 28. Soon after that, Lukas Daschner found no takers with a whipped-in ball from the byeline that flashed across the face of the goal and then Johannes Eggestein hit a shot on the turn into the side netting.

The goal that made the difference at half-time: Terrence Boyd outjumps Manolis Saliakas.

The challenge going into the second half was to show more resolve attacking the opposition goal while keeping Kaiserslautern’s transitional play under control. With this in mind, Schultz introduced an out-and-out target man in Igor Matanović. And the substitute it was who unleashed the first dangerous effort after 58 minutes, only for FCK custodian Andreas Luthe to turn the ball round the post for a corner. The 19-year-old came even closer to registering his first goal of the campaign with a quarter of an hour left with a shot from a central position, but Luthe came out on top again.

It could and probably should have been 2-0 by that point, it has to be said, but goalscorer Boyd somehow managed to hit the post from two metres out when looking certain to score. It remained anyone’s contest, but the Schultz XI lacked the ideas necessary to conjure up an equaliser. Instead, they found themselves two down with five minutes to go when Kenny Prince Redondo struck on the break. 

The home fans may have thought the game had been put to bed, but it was still not over. Luca Zander was denied by Luthe on the volley from the restart, and from the resulting corner Jakov Medić managed to halve the deficit to give his side hope. Lautern were able to keep the Schultz XI at bay, however, to put the seal on the first defeat of the 2022/23 campaign. Next Sunday, the Boys in Brown entertain another promoted side in FC Magdeburg at the Millerntor.

FC Kaiserslautern

Luthe – Durm, Tomiak, Kraus, Zuck – Ritter, Niehues (Ciftci 63’) – Zimmer (Hercher 79’), Wunderlich (Redondo 64’), Hanslik – Boyd

Head coach: Dirk Schuster

FC St. Pauli

Smarsch – Saliakas (Zander 86’), Fazliji (Dźwigała 79’), Medić, Paqarada – Aremu (Matanović 46’ ) – Irvine, Hartel – Boukhalfa (Amenyido 67’) – Eggestein (Otto 67’), Daschner

Head coach: Timo Schultz

Goals: 1-0 Boyd (9’), 2-0 Redondo (86’), 2-1 Medić (88’)

Yellow cards: Boyd – Matanović

Referee: Harm Osmers

Attendance: 39,579

Photo: Witters