FC St. Pauli

Head coach Markus Kauczinski made five changes to the side that started against FC Liefering last Saturday. Robin Himmelmann, Yiyoung Park, Florian Carstens, Ersin Zehir and Mats Møller Dæhli made way for Philipp Heerwagen, Luca Zander, Philipp Ziereis, Johannes Flum and Richard Neudecker.

Karlsruhe made the better start and fashioned the opening chance of the game from a corner with eight minutes gone, Saliou Sané’s header flying wide of the left-hand upright. Marvin Wanitzek then hit a free-kick on target from a central position, but Philipp Heerwagen gathered comfortably. The St. Pauli keeper was in the spotlight again soon after when he produced an excellent reflex save to turn a Damian Rossbach shot over the top. There was nothing he could do in the 23^rd minute, however. Marc Lorenz switched the play with a diagonal ball to Florent Muslija, who converted the pass to give his side a 1-0 lead.

Set pieces at either end were the source of most of the danger in the first half, as in the 26^th minute when Christopher Buchtmann drove a free-kick just over the bar from 20 metres. Sami Allagui narrowly missed out on an equaliser on 36 when he was unable to get a touch on the ball following a nice attacking move involving Johannes Flum and Waldemar Sobota. On the stroke of half-time, Sobota embarked on a mazy run and was brought down on the edge of the area. Marvin Knoll stepped up to take the free-kick, but his effort was marginally too high.

The best opportunity to equalise came just after the restart, but once again Allagui narrowly failed to get on the end of a square ball when ideally placed in front of goal. Chances followed at both ends, Svend Brodersen defusing a long-range effort from Marco Thiede without any problems on 59 before Jan-Marc Schneider directed a header on goal six minutes later that was punched away by KSC custodian Benjamin Uphoff. Karlsruhe went straight up the pitch and won a corner that was flicked on for Muslija to extend their lead with a low drive from outside the box.

After a string of substitutions by both teams, the game lost its edge and became scrappier. Aziz Bouhaddouz made things more exciting 13 minutes from time when he pounced on an underhit clearance by Uphoff to halve the deficit with a clever lob. Kauczinski’s charges increased the pressure and had another good chance through Schneider almost immediately. Four minutes later, however, Karlsruhe put the game out of reach from another set piece, Wanitzek delivering the ball into the penalty area for Christoph Kobald to head home. Just before the end Kyoung-Rok Choi collected a throw-in and threaded a pass through to Oliver Fink, who completed the scoring.

Markus Kauczinski expressed his dissatisfaction with the performance after the final whistle, saying: "All in all we didn’t function well as a team and gave the ball away a lot early in our build-up play. We made too many simple mistakes. In the second half it was very scrappy. We can’t be happy with that at all."

FC St. Pauli

Heerwagen (Brodersen 46’) – Zander (Park 46’), Ziereis (Carstens 61’), Avevor (Koglin 71’), Buballa (Miyaichi 80’) – Knoll (Nehrig 61’), Flum (Zehir 46’), Buchtmann (Becker 71’), Sobota (Schneider 61’), Neudecker (Sahin 46’) – Allagui (Bouhaddouz 61’)

Head coach: Markus Kauczinski

Karlsruher SC

Uphoff – Rossbach, Gordon, Pisot (Kobald 72’), Thiede – Muslija (Camoglu 75’), Wanitzek, Stiefler (Pasalic 62’), Lorenz (Choi 62’) – Röser (Fink 62’), Sané (Batmaz 75’)

Head coach: Alois Schwartz

Goals: 0-1 Muslija (23’), 0-2 Muslija (66’), 1-2 Bouhaddouz (77’), 1-3 Kobald (81’), 1-4 Fink (86’)

Photos: Witters