Goalless Hamburg football derby: Revenge failed

Hamburger SV had to write off its longed-for victory in the city derby against FC St. Pauli. After a lot of fighting and cramping, coach Merlin Polzin’s team couldn’t get past a 0-0 draw with their rivals on Friday evening, so HSV has to continue to wait for its first away win of the season.

After all, HSV, who lost the first leg at the Volksparkstadion 2-0, temporarily moved past Werder Bremen, the other big rival in the north, in the table by winning points and is now in 13th place. And St. Pauli has left the bottom of the table for at least 24 hours and is now in the relegation zone – still five points behind HSV.

“The whole of Germany is watching this derby,” said St. Pauli coach Alexander Blessin before the game, but anyone who had hoped for a high-class game was initially disappointed. In the freezing cold, the initial focus was on not making any mistakes. There were a lot of duels in midfield. And HSV had to replace attacker Alexander Rössing-Lelesiit with Fabio Baldé after a hard foul early on.

The first shot on goal comes shortly before half-time

Driven by playmaker Fabio Vieira, HSV gained a bit of a playful advantage over time, but didn’t really manage to get in front of the St. Pauli goal; the defense was mostly quite secure and well organized. The 29,183 spectators actually had to wait until stoppage time in the first half for Baldé’s first shot on goal (45th + 3).

After the break, the fans entertained themselves with a pyrotechnic show; on the pitch, the game continued to live primarily from the derby atmosphere. After a standard situation, things suddenly became dangerous, but Luka Vuskovic’s header was too unplaced (54′).

The spectators saw a game that was anything but high-class, but the tension increased from minute to minute, with both teams waiting for the one big opportunity and pushing forward. St. Pauli missed two great chances: Danel Sinani (79th) and Arkadiusz Pyrka (81st) were each denied by Daniel Heuer Fernandes. In the end there was no big derby celebration.