FC St. Pauli

Head coach Timo Schultz: "I would have preferred it if we’d put the game to bed earlier today. On the other hand, we can be glad we didn’t concede in the ten minutes after the restart. At the end of the day, it was a deserved victory against an extremely good footballing side. I’m proud of the lads for the way they went flat out in the heat and imposed themselves on the game from the off. And I’m delighted for Jojo, who’s worked extremely hard every game and always had his chances. He’s gone very close sometimes and today he had the luck. The keeper got a hand to it both times, but they still went in. I wouldn’t have had any objections if he’d got a third. The clean sheet is extremely important for us. We’ve given little away in recent games, just 36 attempts in the three games, but too many of them went in. The defensive work was really good today, from front to back."

Marcel Hartel: "Going two up was important but we could have scored one or two more before the break. At half-time we said quite clearly that we didn’t want to come out like we did against Nürnberg and concede right away. That could have happened again today, but the luck was on our side. The first third of the second half wasn’t good but we found our way back into the game and battled tremendously hard in the heat. It was a really nice feeling for me to get the ‘decisive’ goal. I’d missed one earlier and so was all the more delighted to score. After the third goal, everyone knew we were going to win. My wife is pregnant and I told her we’d tell everyone if I got a goal today."

David Nemeth: "The twin strike early on was important for us and mentally it was extremely tough for the opposition to be two down so early in that heat. All the better for us. It wasn’t easy to keep the clean sheet to the end, we all did really well there. It wasn’t easy for me today after my injury, even though I’ve done a lot of work with the ball in recent weeks, albeit not that often with the team. So I’m all the more happy it’s gone so quickly, and I was able to play today and we got the win."

Christian Titz (Magdeburg head coach): "Congratulations to FC St. Pauli on a deserved win. It was a day to forget for us, especially in the first half. That’s the weakest half of football we’ve had together. We fell behind very quickly and it isn’t that easy when you keep giving goals away week in, week out. We can be thankful we didn’t concede even more. We had one good chance in the first half through Connor Krempicki. We made some changes at half-time and were then back it. If you want to hold your own here, you have to take your chances to get back into the game. We had to take some risks then and open up at the back and at 3-0 it was all over."

Photos: Witters