FC St. Pauli

Head coach Timo Schultz: "We invested a lot and never stopped trying to play football, but Karlsruhe kept things very tight, especially in their own penalty area. Scoring goals and stopping them is the only thing that counts in football. The lads invested a lot, but when it came to the crunch as far as scoring goals or stopping them was concerned, we weren't at the races and didn't support each other well. KSC took advantage of that in clinical fashion and were vastly superior in both main disciplines today. We had opportunities to get back into the game but again lacked consistency. Whenever Karlsruhe offered us an opening, we didn't take it to the point where we could get a decent shot off. You lose 3-0 then, that's football."

Daniel Buballa: "We lacked conviction today, both on and off the ball. We weren't aggressive or combative enough and didn’t do enough. We got the long balls but lost the second balls. It's extremely tough against a team like Karlsruhe then. We didn't play with conviction and never got going. Today we saw that we still have to work on bringing aggression to the pitch. We need to start doing that again in the next few games and if we do the results will come."

Robin Himmelmann: "We went behind after a few minutes again today. You can't shrug it off and recover every weekend. Our conviction and body language suffered as a result. We really shouldn't be conceding early again. We still have a lot of work to do and it starts with keeping a clean sheet for once."

KSC coach Christian Eichner: "Two things were extremely important for us today, taking the lead early on and then scoring the second straight after the break. We put them under pressure, stressed them a lot and were brave going forward. I particularly liked how we kept it up. Being unpredictable for the opposition is where we want to be. The game unfolded perfectly for us with the timing of the goals. It feels very good to win away from home going into the international break and we'll take that.

Daniel Gordon (KSC): "All in all, we functioned very well as a team today. The backline defended with a lot of discipline and that was the key to winning in the end."

Marco Thiede (KSC): "We've been very close every time in the last few weeks and we're one or two points short, so we really wanted to get something here today. It was clear from the outset that we were going to leave the pitch victorious. Winning before the international break was good for us mentally."

Photos: Witters