The patient one
Two goals, an assist and a warm hug from his coach: attacker Elias Saad delivered in FC St. Pauli’s 3-0 win and received a lot of love. Sentimentality was justified, however, because the Kiezkickers not only achieved their first Bundesliga victory in 13 years – fate had also chosen the ideal protagonist for this success. Saad, 24, was ordered to the substitutes’ bench by St. Pauli coach Alexander Blessin at the start of the season so that he could deploy his preferred dual leadership – the offensive wing, the Tunisian’s comfort zone, remained orphaned. Blessin had to take criticism for this, after all Saad was one of the most noticeable players in the promotion season. But he wouldn’t have been noticed if he was impatient: two years ago, Saad was whirling through the regional league for Eintracht Norderstedt.
The Artist
Every child dreams of nights like these: floodlights, big opponents, an assist – and a dream goal. Or so it said Bryan Zaragoza23, on Saturday evening after CA Osasuna’s 4-2 win in Pamplona against Hansi Flick’s FC Barcelona. Zaragoza’s dream goal? Almost indescribably beautiful. The FC Bayern loanee ran towards Barcelona goalkeeper Iñaki Peña, pulled the ball away with his sole, put Peña on the ground – and then pushed the ball into the goal. The representative of the injured DFB keeper Marc ter Stegen looked very, very old. “You have something like that, and I have it. You can’t learn that,” Zaragoza said. He was happy about the goal, for many reasons. “I wasn’t feeling well for a while, I’ve had difficult times behind me,” said the Andalusian, obviously also alluding to his time in Munich, where he was only a reservist and was never able to show his art as he did now in Navarre, Spain. “This is not my maximum,” he says, “that’s still to come.”
The annoyed one
In the past, when the post office still delivered daily, Augsburg’s Philipp Tietz possibly said that they could send the points by post to Leipzig in the future. RB and FCA have faced each other sixteen times in the Bundesliga so far, Augsburg have only won once, 1-0 on matchday 5 of the 2017/18 season – never away from home. Now it was the 5th matchday again, and Augsburg had big plans after the home defeat against Mainz, especially Tietz, who was at the forefront without the suspended Samuel Essende. But then they conceded two goals in the first quarter of an hour, captain Gouweleeuw was denied with a penalty kick by Leipzig keeper Gulacsi, and things were off again. In the end it was 0:4. Or as Tietz put it: “Just a shitty game.”
The left behind
The name 1. FFC Potsdam still has a special ring in women’s football: two European Cup victories, six all-German and six GDR championships, three cup victories. Home of national players like Nadine Angerer, Ariane Hingst and Babett Peter. But in a Bundesliga in which the women’s divisions of the strong men’s brands increasingly dominate, the Turbines (pictured: Emily Lemke) have a hard time not being left behind in the long term. Having just returned from the second division, the promoted team is still in last place after four games, with zero points and 0:13 goals. Coach Marco Gebhardt’s team conceded three of them on Saturday against RB Leipzig. Gebhardt? He once played for TSV 1860, another former giant who had been left behind.