FC St. Pauli - SV Darmstadt 98

St. Pauli to take revenge for last season's defeat

TEAM NEWS

Both Jan-Philipp Kalla and Marc Hornschuh, who has already missed the opener, remain injury concerns for Markus Kauczinski’s St. Pauli.

Darmstadt’s Marcel Heller is suspended while Felix Platte is out after suffering a ligament tear.

St. Pauli

Suspended: None

Doubtful: None

Injured/unavailable: Jan-Philipp Kalla (pubis), Marc Hornschuh (slipped disc)

Darmstadt

Suspended: Marcel Heller

Doubtful: None

Injured/unavailable: Felix Platte (torn ligaments)

MATCH PREVIEW

MAIN PREDICTION: HOME WIN

St. Pauli enjoyed a successful trip to Magdeburg last weekend as they left with a 2-1 victory. Man of the match Marvin Knoll scored the winning goal for his new club in the 81^stminute to give the visitors three points in their opening game. St. Pauli started off the new campaign in the same style as last season when they produced some very good performances on the road. However, they struggled to replicate that success on their own turf at first, with just one win, five draws and two losses in their first eight home games. 

Serdar Dursun’s solo was enough to settle a tight first win for Darmstadt over newly-promoted Paderborn at Bollenfalltor last Sunday afternoon. Interestingly, the team started off last season with exactly the same result (against Greuther Furth), but they could not build on that success one year ago, drawing 1-1 with Kaiserslautern in their second match. This season they will want to do better and improve on last term's mid-table finish in tenth place. However, they failed to impress on the road last season with only four wins, eight draws and five defeats.

Both teams have started with a win, but St. Pauli have strengthened their team a lot under Markus Kauczinski and will be looking to make the most of being on home soil this Friday. It could be tight, but back St. Pauli to seal a narrow home win here.

SECOND PREDICTION: HILO – LOW

When these two sides meet goals tend to be scored rarely. In fact, three of the last four encounters have produced only exactly one total goal, while the average over that stretch is 1.5 total goals. I don't expect many goals in this meeting either and take a punt on a low-scoring affair.

HEAD TO HEAD

Darmstadt are undefeated in their last four meetings with St. Pauli, registering four straight wins. The most recent encounter in January ended in a 1-0 defeat for St. Pauli at home.