For the longest time, the footballing power in Hamburg was rather easily settled. Hamburger SV was the city's biggest club, while FC St. Pauli was the little brother that no one really believed in. Despite having a fascinating history and a fair bit of success in the 2. Bundesliga, St....
Last season was St. Pauli's first in the German Bundesliga in over a decade, and they performed pretty well. They lost the famous Fabian Hürzeler before the season started and had one of the cheapest squads in the league. Nevertheless, under the leadership of new coach Alexander Blessin, St. Pauli...
Many Team of the Season selections are, frankly, boring. Sometimes, you couldn't really call it a team; it's just a selection of eleven players, and their actual positions don't even matter. Sometimes, it's just an absurd selection because the idea is to pick only the players they think are the...
Last Saturday, the 2024/2025 Bundesliga season came to a close. Over 34 matchdays, many surprises, many non-surprises, and many emotions were once again the driving force behind one of the most exciting leagues in European football. In the end, most of the final results came as expected, with Bayern Munich...
Sir Alex Ferguson once said, 'Attack wins games, defence wins titles'. However, for coaches like Alexander Blessin and José Bordalás, who are not in the ideal position to win titles with their current teams, the legendary quote can be changed to 'attack wins you games, defence keeps you in the...
Inter Milan's run to the 2024/2025 UEFA Champions League final is likely to spark discussion around back-three formations. The hype around the back-three isn't new, but this season, many of the teams using it are showing that they deserve the spotlight, particularly in the way they defend and play out of possession. The...
The term 'false nine' has become really popular in football since Pep Guardiola put Lionel Messi in that role during their time at Barcelona. The idea of making Messi receive the ball between the lines, sometimes unmarked, and allowing him to create spaces for the wide forwards to run into...
Adaptation is key for a footballer because they're always facing changes. Whether it's changing clubs or teammates or something more tactical, like changing position or role while playing, it's all part of the job. That's especially true when it comes to the role or position you play. You often have...
From the 1960s to the 1980s, the role of the sweeper (or libero) was very popular in football. One of the most interesting features of the role was that it allowed the defender, typically positioned behind the rest of the back line, to drive vertically into the midfield area with...
SV Bonlanden is a Sunday League club in the greater Stuttgart area. They currently play in the second-to-last division of organised German football. I’m currently working five minutes away from their training ground and it’s absolutely beautiful there, but the club is still irrelevant to world football, or is it?...
FC Bayern have started their new era under Vincent Kompany as well as anybody can—unbeaten after 10 games and top of the table, largely because of their clinical performance in front of the goal. Kompany’s men have scored 33 goals with an xG of just 24.24 — an overperformance of...
FC Bayern have started their new era under Vincent Kompany as well as anybody can—unbeaten after 10 games and top of the table, largely because of their clinical performance in front of the goal. Kompany’s men have scored 33 goals with an xG of just 24.24 — an overperformance of...
Time for the #TFAArchives! Brian Priske will be Arne Slot’s replacement at Feyenoord. We recently went into detail on the 47-year-old’s impressive pressing at Sparta Prague. Read our analysis to see why he’s Feyenoord’s choice. Fabian Hürzeler of St. Pauli is seemingly set to be Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton and...
Time for the #TFAArchives! Each day, Fintan O'Reilly gets deep into the 10,000+ articles we've written on TFA over the years and pulls out a few that might be of interest based on current events and news and sometimes, Chris Beaumont remembers to post them. Leandro Trossard scored the only...
Who is Fabian Hürzeler? As FC St. Pauli continues to make waves in German football, much credit is attributed to the transformative impact of their head coach, Fabian Hürzeler. Since assuming the helm in early 2023, the 31-year-old has orchestrated a defensive revolution within the team, reshaping their mindset and...
St. Pauli fans lived a brief dream under Timo Schultz. The 2021/22 season was off to a flying start, and by January, they were sitting at the top of the 2. Bundesliga. Without German first-division football in over a decade, the prospect of finally competing among the elite again drove the...
A couple of months ago, I analysed Rodrigo Zalazar of St. Pauli, an exciting, young, and dynamic central-midfielder on loan from Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt. Now, I am looking at his teammate, also on loan from a Bundesliga club, this time a player vying from north Germany rather than the...
