Kult & Punk: St Pauli fall to the bottom side in Week 9

Kult & Punk put aside their restraining order and lifted this report from the official Bundasliga site.  Week 9 saw the mighty Saints lose at the Merc. Next week we promise to drag K&P away from their jugs in Zoe's Bar and go and watch a game. 

They apologise for no report on last weeks game, this was due to operational difficulties, actually an unusually strong guest ale.

VfB Stuttgart  2   FC St. Pauli  0.

VfB Stuttgart finally rose off the bottom of the table on Sunday evening thanks to a 2-0 victory at home to FC St. Pauli.

The Swabians' second victory of the season and first under new coach Jens Keller came courtesy of goals in either half from Georg Niedermeier and Zdravko Kuzmanovic. VfB rise four places up the standings to 14th, while St. Pauli are left ruing a host of first-half misses as they drop to tenth.

Niedermeier opens the scoring

The visitors began a hard-fought first half the better of the two sides and were somewhat unfortunate to go behind in the 19th minute when Niedermeyer rose highest to head in a Timo Gebhart corner. Zdravko Kuzmanovic almost added a quickfire second three minutes later, but his strike from long distance nestled onto the roof of the net.

But Pauli remained undeterred and would have deserved their equaliser had Stuttgart 'keeper Sven Ulreich not denied Matthias Lehmann superbly on 23 minutes after the midfielder let fly from the edge of the box. Carlos Zambrano was then desperately unlucky to see his dipping volley canon back off the bar, before Lehmann again saw a long-range strike repelled by the fists of Ulreich.

Kuzmanovic makes sure

Serdar Tasci had a decent header turned around the post by Pauli 'keeper Thomas Kessler on the stroke of half-time, and there were chances at either end following the restart. First Cacau saw his strike from range turned wide by the busy Kessler, while Marius Ebbers saw his header tipped over at the other end by Ulreich before Tasci had to heroically clear Max Kruse's dinked finish off the line.

Cacau struck a loose ball narrowly over from the edge of the box before coming within an inch of providing the perfect cross for Gebhart shortly before the hour, and the result was put beyond doubt with 79 minutes on the clock. Substitute Ciprian Marica broke free down the right, pulling back for Serbian international Kuzmanovic to sweep into the near corner from the edge of the box, ensuring the hosts were finally able to celebrate following a testing last few weeks.

Stuttgart: Ulreich - Celozzi, Niedermeier, Tasci, Boka (Molinaro 82') - Kuzmanovic, Träsch - Gebhart, Gentner (Harnik 38') - Pogrebnyak (Marica 71'), Cacau

Pauli: Kessler - Lechner, Zambrano, Thorandt, Oczipka - Boll (Bruns 63'), Lehmann - Kruse (Naki 59'), Asamoah (Takyi 84'), Bartels - Ebbers

Goals: 1-0 Niedermeier (19'), 2-0 Kuzmanovic (79')

Attendance at the Mercedes Benz Arena: 44,950 (sold-out)