FC St. Pauli

Head coach Fabian Hürzeler: “We started very well and had the game under control. Braunschweig were mainly a threat on the break, but we held them off well. We were more dominant in the second half and got our reward with the goal. We had opportunities after that, but our play wasn’t resolute enough. We lacked a cutting edge when we had chances to make it 2-0 and we have only ourselves to blame. Braunschweig eventually caught us with a lucky punch. When you play here, you know they have the quality to get a goal from nothing. It’s bitterly disappointing and we have to learn from it and that’s what we’ll do hopefully.”

Hauke Wahl: “The reaction after our goal was the right one. We kept playing football, gave nothing away at the back, and I genuinely felt we had the game under control. Then they played a long ball, and he smacked it in first time from our headed clearance. It’s really hard to take because we were close to making it 2-0. That’s what we’re lacking at the moment – winning a game by two or three – so we’re really disappointed. It’s obviously on our minds, but it’s not down to quality, we definitely have that. We’re creating lots of chances. It’s about the way we play football and that’s good, even though we’re obviously disappointed with the result. We have to keep going and maintain this conviction. We’re happy to have added a new player in Simon Zoller, who’s a great fit. We now have two weeks’ time to help him in soak everything up here.”

Elias Saad: “I’d rather have won than scored. I was really happy to be called up by Tunisia, it allowed me to play with freedom today and I think I showed that on the pitch. I’ll definitely keep my foot down. Our performances are always good, the only shortcoming is our chance conversion, and I’m getting even more chances in the final third as well. I’m annoyed about my second chance, I should have hit it better, but we’ll keep our belief and hopefully win our next game.”

Jens Härtel (Braunschweig coach): “It was the game we were expecting. It was clear we couldn’t open up fully. I knew that from watching St. Pauli play, but I think we were very disciplined in defence. They weren’t big chances, though, most of them were shots from outside the box. We lost possession too quickly going forward, though we had a couple of good situations. The pressure was high in the second half. Saad’s goal is one you needn’t concede. After that we had a phase where we had to find our feet again. We then invested more going forward and as a result we lost the ball a few times and gave St. Pauli the space in which they had opportunities to put the game to bed. We kept at it, though, and got the goal. It was really good from us in that situation.”

Photos: FC St. Pauli