I have seen VfB Stuttgart play last season twice when they played against Schalke and against Eintracht Frankfurt, however, in both games, Stuttgart lost those games which didn’t help the team down the line last season when they faced off in the Bundesliga relegation playoffs, playing against (at that time second league) Union Berlin. Union, however, pulled it off by winning the playoffs which sent the Union to the first league for the first time in club history. This left VfB Stuttgart holding the empty bag and slapped back down to the second league, where they just got promoted from the previous season. Oh well, it happens. That’s football. That’s sports – you just don’t know when someone wakes up on the right side of the bed to shock everyone.

It’s August and it’s raining… that is NOT summer. Can the football gods at least give us some good weather since it’s summertime?

However, I didn’t go to Stuttgart to watch the home team play. No, instead I went to Stuttgart to go watch St. Pauli play! Tickets to their home games in Hamburg, Germany are absolutely impossible to obtain as they are sold out all the time due to having a cult-like fan base (as well as more season-ticket holders than seats available!). Now granted that their home station, Millerntor-Stadion, is almost half the capacity of Volksparkstadion, home stadium of their crosstown rivals, Hamburger SV, which makes the tickets much more difficult to find in addition to all the season ticket holders hoarding all the tickets. So that was my reason why I decided that I would go to a St. Pauli away game to watch not just the team but also their supporters who are also known as hardcore leftist politics fans. St. Pauli (also known in Germany as Sankt Pauli (German spelling)), however, the team did not start off well in the season compared to last year when they were threatening to be near the top of 2nd league and attempt to get promoted. This year… not so much as they are near the bottom of the rankings. Of course, things could change over time like what happened to Hamburg SV when they were in first place one year but slowly over time lost their place and almost got the relegation treatment. I think the following year the team finally got relegated.

The crazy, old St. Pauli fans cheering on their team from Hamburg. For being visiting fans, they were probably the loudest that I’ve heard for any visiting team in Europe. They sure are passionate about their team.

Known as the teams with the brown and white colors, the St. Pauli players come out to warm up in the rain.

Because of the severe World War II bombings of Stuttgart during the 1940s, the city does not really have any super-standout attractions other than the car museums and the major football club. So, it might be a good idea to make Stuttgart one of those passing through cities or a quick stay over to go elsewhere or going to a football game. I think Stuttgart is playing a little bit better this year only because they are not going against the top talents in the first league.

In this game, I still saw the same struggles that they made last year that the team cannot pass effectively which means they can’t score effectively which in turn means that they can’t win games that well. Stuttgart had some problems getting it going against St. Pauli, which after watching the team play for awhile, appeared to be a counter-attacking team like Paderborn or Schalke in the Bundesliga. That’s how the team went up 1-0 in the first half nullifying all the other good attempts at goal scoring by Stuttgart. However, Stuttgart turned up the pressure against St. Pauli, despite the bumbling and stumbling of their offense at times, to score and equalize in the second half! Off of a corner kick which stayed on the ground instead of being airborne.

Stuttgart (the team in black colors) would vary their playing style by going from a 3-5-2 to 4-3-1-2 to 5-2-3. Almost the entire game, the team was in attack mode which paid off in the end especially with their second goal.

After some more back and forth, Stuttgart scores it in the last minute to pretty much wrap up the 3 points! The home fans go wildly crazy as the St. Pauli fans are in complete shock. It was just pandemonium to the max that even a fan ran out onto the field! Luckily, nothing happened as security immediately grabbed him and escorted him with force off the field. That was the first time that I have ever seen that happen in a game where a fan jumped out onto the field. I’ve seen it in the United States and on TV but never in a live game in Europe. I guess you go crazy when your team does great things…. or bad things.

Almost every European country has its own cup game that usually involves several divisions among its football league. So basically, some (but not all) fourth league teams, third league teams and second league teams get the opportunity to play against the first league teams. There are shockers when a lower-ranked team will knock off a higher league team so it does happen. To me, the first rounds are basically a gate-ticket opportunity for the lower-ranked teams to sell tickets since a big-time team will be coming to town. After the first few rounds is when things get super serious and you can easily figure out who’s who – the contenders, not the pretenders.

In this game, it was SV Wehen Wiesbaden vs FC Köln with FC Köln being the visiting team and after spending one season in the second league and winning it, the team is back to the first league as it should. Wiesbaden has also been promoted, going from third league to second league after being in third place of the third league and winning the relegation/promotion playoffs. The team has started seeing some success after spending quite a bit of time in the regional and third leagues, but maybe it’s finally time for the team to see success finally? Who knows… they could do well or do badly to where they get relegated back down to third league.

Both teams were gearing up for the initial whistle to start off the game which would turn out to be a great one.

But this game was a great game as Wiesbaden kept putting the heavy pressure onto FC Köln in the beginning. A bit different when Paderborn last year when Paderborn would just counterattack and win the game that way. Wiesbaden would high press and attack from all sides but FC Köln was just too resilient and ended up scoring 2 goals in the first half. But after the halftime break, Wiesbaden continued its relentless attack and scored its first and second goals to tie the game, shocking the visiting team and visiting fans. As the final horn sounds, it’s time to go into overtime as these games are not considering away goals advantage. Nothing happened in the first overtime, but in the second overtime, FC Köln strikes a third goal to put the home team away… until Wiesbaden in complete desperation manages to equalize with its third goal!

It’s hard to tell from this picture but to the right, is a construction side. I believe the team, with its great recent success, has decided to make some upgrades to the stadium especially if the team makes it to top flight football. One of the footballs actually flew over into the construction side – oops.

The game goes into the penalty shootout which was a roller coaster as well! Blocked shots, massive pressure…. it had it all but Köln wins in the end by scoring the last and definitive winner but I could see that both sides were tired. Köln was pushed to the limits.

Near the game’s end, there was a rainbow because of all the rain throughout the game which made for some slippery moments. Some might have wondered if this was a sign for Wiesbaden to win because last year, the team knocked off St. Pauli in a surprise upset.

The game was just wild, wacky, and fun. Despite the Police Chief of Wiesbaden making a speech to the fans to behave properly, nothing really bad happened other than people were throwing beer when the home team scored. People threw beer at the opposing players (because Brita Arena is smaller than most stadiums, bench players that warm up near the end sideline are a lot closer and within throwing distance) which is a complete no-no. I remember even when Wiesbaden equalized on the second and third goals, the fans threw beer in celebration and a couple fans jumped on the railing!

Overall, it was a great game as both teams were pushed to their limits going all the way to the penalty shootout which you don’t see much unless it was a deadlock which in this game, it was.