FC St. Pauli

These are the weeks every football fan loves. A game every three days. No time to draw breath. Onwards, ever onwards. No time for excessive celebrations or deep depressions. Saturday marks the first "English week" of the season, otherwise known as three matches in eight days. St. Pauli start with a home game against FC Ingolstadt and then travel to Holstein Kiel on Tuesday before finishing off with the visit of Fortuna Düsseldorf to the Millerntor next Saturday. This is football: bring it on!

On the subject of starts, Olaf Janßen's side have made a decent one this season. Ten points from five games is a more than respectable haul. One thing that has become clear more than anything else is that the Boys in Brown know how to fight, as anyone who saw the 1-0 win at Nürnberg will testify. The players threw themselves into the tackles like there was no tomorrow. Up front, Waldemar Sobota was wide awake at exactly the right moment, and three points was the result. Fittingly enough, the Boys in Brown have the best tackle success rate of any side in the league at the moment, having won 53.3 per cent of their direct duels.

"It's going to be a tough game"

Yet battling qualities will not be all that's required against FCI, of course. "They're a team with bags of quality," said Christopher Avevor. "The way they've started the season doesn't tell you much, there's still a long way to go." Olaf Janßen also understands the difficulty of the task ahead. "It's going to be a tough game," he said at Thursday's pre-match press conference. "Ingolstadt are out to make amends and will give it all they've got. We'll need to fight even harder than we did on Monday and put in a much-improved performance."

After a stuttering start to the season the visitors will also be looking to raise their game. Three points from five games is nothing to write home about for a side who have come down from the Bundesliga, it has to be said, a view shared by captain Marvin Matip. "We've been punished for our mistakes straightaway but there are still plenty of positives. We're ready for the second division and want to translate this into points at last," he said after the 2-1 defeat against Erzgebirge Aue last time out.

Olaf Janßen, for his part, is sure his team can step up another gear, as the saying goes. "The lads have given me a good feeling," he said, describing his training ground impressions. The feeling the players and the gaffer will get when they run out on Saturday won't be all that bad either. "We'll have some 30,000 fans behind us. That's a nice position to start from," said Janßen, looking ahead. We have to agree. Three games in eight days? Bring it on, brother. Come on you Boys in Brown!

Photos: Marion Masuch