St Pauli in the pre-season

So things aren't looking too shabby for the boys in brown in the pre-season. First a draw with Scottish giants, Celtic FC, 2-2, and now they've beaten EPL team Stoke City a full 3-1. Granted Stoke City was probably testing out some of the younger players on their squad, but surely this friendly was an opportunity for St Pauli to play some of their bench sitters as well. Regardless of who was on the pitch, seems like a pretty good outcome...for now.

I can only hope this good form carries into the regular season which has not been their strong suit as of late. Seems they can do well in the pre-season AND even in some of the tournaments outside of the regular season, beating teams in the First Bundeliga, but have trouble in their own second division.

Good luck boys, always behind you!

England all the way huh...

While all four teams making it to the Champions' League Quarter-finals are English Premier League teams...I feel I must make note of a certain "official" ranking site. I do this also because it is the EPL that is frequently touted as the greatest league with the greatest teams. An example would be the recent quote from Man. U.'s Sir Alex Ferguson, "'The Premier League is the strongest in Europe.
Personally, I agree with That's On Point's latest take on this, in which the top EPL teams are better than other leagues' top teams, but with the money the EPL has to spend how could they not buy the best teams?? But, to consider all teams from the top to the bottom I think the UEFA ranking is more correct.

While I may be a little biased, I still believe this "official" ranking holds true. Just look at the point spreads of each league. Currently, the comparison between the top and the bottom teams of each league are EPL = 56 points, Italy Series A = 46 points, La Liga = 43 and even the Bundesliga is only seperated by 33 points. I could be wrong but I think I remember a time last year (after the winter break) in which the top ten La Liga teams were only seperateda by about 12 points. I know this isn't the only indicator, some could say the whole league is subpar (and we know this isn't true), but when you have that strong of a league, there won't be as big of a spread.

Just wanted to put that out there.

(Total sidenote that I also just wanted to add: Here's an article about attendance for leagues all over Europe vs MLS.)

FC ST PAULI...match cast

As it stands, this ESPN site is the only one I know of that will have "updated" info about the match this afternoon against TSV 1860 Munich. I hope to find a better one with more detail and info. We shall see.

Let's Go Boys in Brown! NO MORE DRAWS!!

And speaking of the Bhoys in Brown, looks as though a little band known as The Wakes (formerly Murphy's Law) are working on (or have recorded, I can't quite tell from the quality of this video) a new song FOR "the fans of St. Pauli." Check out this live recording of "The Pirates of the League" from a couple weeks ago.