St. Pauli knock Hoffenheim out of DFB-Pokal on penalties | OneFootball

The two teams came to the cup tie in contrasting forms, but it was the relegation-threatened hosts who took the lead inside the first minute. And it wasn’t even their first shot of the match.

Joel Chima Fujita’s attempt was cleared for a corner-kick, and Hauke Wahl scored from the resulting set-piece. The center-back found the target for the fourth time in the cup after James Sands headed Louis Oppie’s delivery in his direction.

The hosts nearly doubled their lead in the 15th minute through Connor Metcalfe. Hoffenheim started to dominate possession after that, but Ben Voll’s first save only came in the 38th minute from Grisha Prömel’s attempt.

Prömel scored the last goal when Hoffenheim won 3-0 here nine days earlier in the Bundesliga, but St. Pauli showed fighting spirit in the cup duel. However, the visitors went into the half-time break thinking that they scored all their goals in the Bundesliga head-to-head fixture in the second-half.

And that’s what happened two minutes after the restart. Prömel gets his goal with a near-post finish from Andrej Kramaric’s set-piece. Nearly twenty minutes later, Tim Lemperle came close to put Hoffenheim in front following a short corner-kick routine.

Substitutes Mathias Pereira Lage and Ihlas Bebou had their respective team’s best chances before the tie entered extra-time. St. Pauli managed to match Hoffenheim’s level, unlike in their recent Bundesliga meeting.

However, they were extremely fortunate when Wouter Burger hit the crossbar in the first-half of extra-time. Yet, they rued their luck early in the second-half when James Sands’ handball resulted in a penalty-kick for Hoffenheim.

Kramaric scored from the spot with the usual aplomb to put the visitors ahead. Despite St. Pauli’s best efforts to get back into the game, Hoffenheim managed to hold on to their lead until the very last action of extra-time. The visitors failed to clear their lines from Eric Smith's corner-kick, and Pereira Lage finally scored his first goal for St. Pauli when they needed it the most.

St. Pauli's captain, Smith, started the penalty shootout with a successful attempt, but Kramaric uncharacteristically missed Hoffenheim's first kick. However, Oliver Baumann leveled the score by denying the man of the hour, Pereira Lage. Both teams scored four of their kicks before the shootout entered sudden death.

Baumann came very close to stopping Joel Fujita's attempt, and Ozan Kabak took his penalty in the worst possible way, but both teams scored their first three kicks in the sudden death. Voll finally won it for St. Pauli by saving Albian Hajdari's effort. The hosts ended their losing streak with a dramatic cup win at Millerntor-Stadion.