FC St. Pauli

Dresden's winter outings

Uwe Neuhaus's side held their winter training camp at Marbella in Spain. A narrow 2-1 win defeat in the opening warm-up game against VfL Wolfsburg was followed by wins over Werder Bremen II (2-1) and FC Groningen (3-1). These six goals came from six different players. Back in Germany, the dress rehearsal against Mlada Boleslav ended in a 4-1 home defeat.

Waiting to return

The season was just 25 minutes old when Pascal Testroet suffered a devastating cruciate ligament tear against MSV Duisburg on 30 July. After five-and-a-half months of hard work the striker returned to the pitch at the winter training camp and hopes to be back in action soon. Another Dresden player to tear his cruciate needs no introducing. Former St. Pauli captain Sören Gonther, who played for the club from 2012 to 2017, sustained the injury against Arminia Bielefeld in round seven and, after undergoing a second operation in December, is unlikely to feature again this season. Here's hoping the recovery goes well!

Young deputy between the posts

Goalkeeper Marvin Schwäbe has played every minute so far this term, keeping five clean sheets in his 18 appearances, but is sidelined at the moment due to a knee injury. His place between the posts is being filled by Markus Schubert. The 19-year-old product of the club's youth system has been with Dynamo since 2011 and has made two appearances for the first team to date.

Back home

Dynamo dipped into the transfer market once during the winter break, capturing the experienced second-division defender Marcel Franke on loan from Norwich City. Franke, who moved to the Canaries from Greuther Fürth for three million euros in summer, is another player to come through the ranks at Dresden. The 1.93m centre-back, who made just five appearances for Norwich, wore the yellow-and-black shirt from 1998 to 2013.

On the up

Thursday's game is a meeting of two teams who sit next to each other in the table. The Saxony outfit occupy 11^th place on 23 points, just one behind the Boys in Brown. In terms of current form, however, Dynamo are in the ascendancy. Though they lost 2-0 against Bielefeld in the final game before the winter break, that defeat came on the back of three successive wins in which they scored eight times and conceded just once.

On-field dominance

Dynamo have been very assured on the ball this season, as evidenced by a possession statistic of 54.4 per cent, better than any other team in the league. And in Rico Benatelli, who joined them from Kickers Würzburg in summer, they also have the best passer of a ball in Bundesliga 2. In 11 appearances thus far, an impressive 90 per cent of his passes found their intended target.

Indifferent home form

The DDV Stadium has been anything but a bastion for Dynamo this term. Uwe Neuhaus's team sit next to last in the Bundesliga 2 home rankings, having garnered just nine points in Dresden. Only bottom side Kaiserslautern have picked up fewer points on home turf (8). In contrast, the Boys in Brown have collected 13 points on their travels so far, a haul that puts them eighth in the away table.

Photos: DFL / Pressefoto Eibner