One of the familiar tells of St Pauli’s standalone attitude to their kit, until recently, was the sleeve patch advertising a local brewer. Astra make much of their alternative worldview too, as well as their attachment to the location of their microbrewery in the Reeperbahn. Like the football club, they see themselves at the heart of St Pauli’s community.
Astra’s logo, spray-painted on the main stand at Millerntor, is particularly evocative of where they’re at. It’s a red heart with an anchor piercing the top, a nod to the city of Hamburg’s maritime heritage resembling a sailor’s tattoo (which is why it always looked so satisfying on the upper arm of St Pauli’s jerseys). Having waited over a decade to come back up they are trying to truly establish themselves in the top flight for the first time. To finally drop anchor, if you will.
In the week Oke Göttlich was re-elected president, having already completed a decade in the post, the club made a further move towards stability. They have always known that staying up this season would be touch and go, given their model and their beliefs, that have been addressed by their innovative model of future funding, selling their Millentor stadium to a cooperative of supporters.
Now St Pauli can be satisfied with January on the pitch. Two successive and vital wins against rivals for the drop have put them in a position of strength, in 13th. They are six points clear of Heidenheim, the current occupiers of the third-from-bottom relegation playoff spot, where they won last week, and leapfrogged Union Berlin on goal difference with Sunday’s 3-0 home victory.
They have looked tight, dogged and well-drilled by coach Alexander Blessin for most of the season, but it looked like a lack of goals might ultimately sink them. After eight games they had five points and had scored five goals. Three days before winning at Heidenheim, they went down 1-0 at Bochum, a team with even fewer survival prospects than St Pauli. It was one of two 1-0 defeats to start the year.
Wolfsburg 2-2 Holstein Kiel, Mainz 2-0 VfB Stuttgart, RB Leipzig 2-2 Leverkusen, Augsburg 2-1 Heidenheim, Freiburg 1-2 Bayern, Dortmund 2-2 Werder, Mönchengladbach 3-0 Bochum, Hoffenheim 2-2 Eintracht Frankfurt, St Pauli 3-0 Union Berlin
Enter Morgan Guilavogui. The Guinea forward has not been wearing his hero’s suit for most of this season; it has taken him time to settle in northern Germany. In fact the 26-year-old is still getting used to the top level, period. The younger brother of the former France (and current Leeds) midfielder Josuha hoped he was taking a step up when joining Lens last season after a prolific spell with Paris FC but despite making a belated Champions League debut, it was an often frustrating experience. Having made a loan switch at the start of the season, the same was true of his initial steps in the Bundesliga.
No matter. A first goal in the vital win over Holstein Kiel at the end of November got him going, and another at Heidenheim last week was followed by a double against Union on Sunday, with the first a piledriver on the run from a tight angle. “Morgan has a different story to mine,” Josuha, seven and a half years his senior, told So Foot last year. “He wasn’t kept on in the academy and had to go back through amateur football. What’s happening for him now is brilliant.” Guilavogui junior is at the heart of an explosion of St Pauli goals, five in two games now.
Making do and mending is the St Pauli way, as the rise and rise of fellow striker Dapo Afolayan has shown. Maybe now Guilavogui, like his temporary employers, could be set to settle at the top table.
Talking points
• Borussia Dortmund began the post-Nuri Sahin era by stopping the rot, at least statistically. The 2-2 draw at home to Werder Bremen was the first time they have avoided defeat in 2025, but the first game under caretaker coach Mike Tullberg was as chaotic as any of the games that preceded it. Nico Schlotterbeck was sent off (as in the away fixture in Bremen) for a last-man challenge yet BVB still managed to take a 2-0 lead, before the visitors pulled it back – both scorers, Leonardo Bittencourt and Marvin Ducksch, are ex-Dortmunders. “When it rains, it pours,” said Tullberg, who was confirmed by the managing director Lars Ricken as being in charge for Wednesday’s final Champions League group game against Shakhtar Donetsk, with no permanent successor to Sahin seeming imminent.
• The Leon Goretzka train might have slowed down after last week’s exploits but it was a good weekend for Bayern on two fronts. The 2-1 win at Freiburg extended their lead at the head of the table to six points after Edmond Tapsoba’s late own goal pegged Leverkusen back at Leipzig, and Goretzka’s replacement when he was forced off in the first half was Josip Stanisic, playing his first minutes since damaging a knee in pre-season. Stanisic was on loan to Leverkusen for their all-conquering 2023-24 campaign (even scoring against his parent club in a victory) so it all contributed to the feeling that the title worm is turning.
• For the champions it was an opportunity missed; Leverkusen had led 2-0 in the first half and created more than enough chances to put the game to bed before that late sucker punch. Florian Wirtz was outstanding again despite being thrown off his stride by Diego Simeone’s team in a Champions League defeat last Tuesday. Leipzig’s Willi Orbán squared up to Wirtz on the touchline, and the 21-year-old responded by slaloming through Orbán and Arthur Vermeeren then hitting a post with an outrageous shot, before Patrik Schick snaffled the rebound. It was one of three occasions on which the irrepressible Wirtz hit the woodwork and he also assisted Aleix García’s goal. “That was exactly the right answer,” said the captain, Lukas Hradecky. “Of course the opponents want to put him out of the game, here and in Madrid, but today he was great.”
• Mainz continue to fly high after beating Stuttgart 2-0 and are now just a point behind their weekend visitors, who are fourth, despite the absence of star striker Jonathan Burkhardt. Teenager Nelson Weiper stepped in for his first senior start in 18 months after various injuries ruined last term, and calmly slotted in the opener. “We don’t want to do rush to buy players and then ruin the path for our young players,” emphasised sporting director Niko Bungert, underlining the reason for a cautious transfer policy.
• It was all about fine margins for poor Heidenheim. Having equalised through Patrick Mainka they were within a whisker of a winner at Augsburg when Marnon Busch’s deflected cross hit the inside of a post in stoppage time. Nearly two minutes later they conceded the decisive goal to Keven Schlotterbeck, pulling the home side 11 points clear of their visitors – who look increasingly marooned in the bottom three – and close to safety.
• This article was amended on 27 January 2025. An earlier version referred to St Pauli having scored twice in their first eight Bundesliga games, at which point they actually had five goals.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 19 | 42 | 48 |
| 2 | Bayer Leverkusen | 19 | 20 | 42 |
| 3 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 19 | 18 | 37 |
| 4 | Stuttgart | 19 | 8 | 32 |
| 5 | RB Leipzig | 19 | 5 | 32 |
| 6 | Mainz | 19 | 10 | 31 |
| 7 | Wolfsburg | 19 | 8 | 28 |
| 8 | Borussia M'gladbach | 19 | 1 | 27 |
| 9 | Werder Bremen | 19 | -3 | 27 |
| 10 | Freiburg | 19 | -10 | 27 |
| 11 | Borussia Dortmund | 19 | 1 | 26 |
| 12 | Augsburg | 19 | -11 | 25 |
| 13 | St Pauli | 19 | -4 | 20 |
| 14 | Union Berlin | 19 | -11 | 20 |
| 15 | Hoffenheim | 19 | -12 | 18 |
| 16 | Heidenheim | 19 | -16 | 14 |
| 17 | Holstein Kiel | 19 | -20 | 12 |
| 18 | VfL Bochum | 19 | -26 | 10 |
