FC St. Pauli

Head coach Markus Kauczinski and his coaching team made for some smiling faces on the training ground, as the focus of the opening session was on working with the ball – first in several groups with the emphasis on technique and then in various game-related drills. Bernd Nehrig, Dimitrios Diamantakos and Luis Coordes completed personalised routines after warming up with the rest of the squad, and the session ended after around two hours.

Next up on the agenda was the warm-up match against the local third-tier outfit FC Pinzgau, who three weeks ago emerged from a friendly against Russia giants Zenit St. Petersburg with a creditable 1-0 defeat. The Boys in Brown got off to a good start and could have taken the lead with just four minutes gone when Philipp Ziereis hit the post from Christopher Buchtmann’s cross. Five minutes later Marvin Knoll went one better. Following an attack down the left-hand side he met the defensive clearance first time from 20 metres to register his first goal in St. Pauli colours. Just 120 seconds later Waldemar Sobota struck to make it 2-0.

Mats Møller Dæhli could have added a third on 19 minutes but dragged his shot narrowly off target. The third goal did come five minutes later, however, Sobota finding the bottom-right corner from ten metres. Jan-Marc Schneider narrowly missed out on 33 but Buchtmann made no mistake three minutes later to make it 4-0, and that wasn’t the end of the scoring, as Schneider netted from a corner on the stroke of half-time.

Kauczinski fielded a completely different side for the second half, including Aziz Bouhaddouz for his first appearance since returning from the World Cup. The pattern of the game remained the same, however, with the Boys in Brown continuing to dominate. Sami Allagui hit the post in the 51^st minute and Ryo Miyaichi went close soon after before Allagui finished off a nice move involving Richard Neudecker and Bouhaddouz to complete the half-dozen on 56.

The home side fashioned their first opportunity on the hour, but Zoltan Kiss’s free-kick was too high and there was no need for Robin Himmelmann to intervene. Allagui almost bagged his second goal with a shot on the turn on 66 but eleven minutes later he did hit the target to make it 7-0. Sixty seconds later he got on the end of a Bouhaddouz pass to complete his hat-trick, matching his feat against Flensburg of scoring three uninterrupted goals in a row.

Speaking after the 8-0 win, Markus Kauczinski said: "We maintained a high tempo in the first half and left hardly any gaps. The second half was good as well, though not quite as good as the first. Overall we moved the ball around well and our movement was good."

FC St. Pauli (1^st half)

Brodersen - Zander, Ziereis, Avevor, Buballa - Knoll - Flum, Buchtmann - Sobota, Schneider, Møller Dæhli

FC St. Pauli (2^nd half)

Himmelmann - Park, Koglin, Carstens, Becker (Münzner 76’) - Zehir, Neudecker - Miyaichi, Allagui, Sahin - Bouhaddouz

Goals: 0-1 Knoll (9’), 0-2 Sobota (11’), 0-3 Sobota (24’), 0-4 Buchtmann (36’), 0-5 Schneider (45’), 0-6 Allagui (56’), 0-7 Allagui (79’), 0-8 Allagui (80’)

Photos: Witters