Three striker stories from the north: Holstein Kiel, FC St. Pauli and Werder Bremen

On the Klose path

The newly promoted Holstein Kiel has not yet produced many prominent faces, but perhaps that is about to change. The striker is still likely Phil Harris22, remains largely unrecognized when he goes shopping for Christmas presents outside Kiel or his hometown of Datteln – although it is no longer completely impossible that someone will ask him for a selfie elsewhere. Harres not only contributed two goals to Kiel’s 5-1 win against FC Augsburg on Saturday – a remarkable success that was not necessarily to be expected after five recent defeats. Harres was also able to realize afterwards how “surreal” his own special career felt. The 1.93 meter man was signed by regional league team FC Homburg in the summer and initially played for Holstein II in the regional league at the start of the season. He now has four first division goals this season and has pushed Kiel’s promoted striker Benedikt Pichler to the bench. By the way, the young Miroslav Klose also played in Homburg. His record at the time was 18 games and one goal. Harres, on the other hand, scored 28 goals in 43 games in Saarland – maybe it’s not all that surreal after all.

Magically defended

Alexander Blessin was born 51 years ago in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, where he may have met the slightly older Fredi Bobic as a toddler. A contact is guaranteed for later years; there are pictures from the late 1990s that show the striker Blessin coming on as a substitute for Bobic in the VfB jersey. Blessin had a rather small career as a striker; he later played in Antalya, Pfullendorf and Siegen. But he shouldn’t be blamed for his lack of a breakthrough at VfB, he fell into exactly that time when the “Magic Triangle” Elber/Bobic/Balakow was doing Magic Triangle things in Stuttgart. It must have made Blessin all the more happy that he prevented VfB’s offensive from doing their job in the 1-0 away win at the weekend. As coach of FC St. Pauli, Blessin built a first-class defense made up of centipedes that functioned perfectly even in a skeleton situation. Without being purely destructive, they spied on and blocked everything that came close to the goal. In this way, Blessin managed to ensure that the grief over the loss of his predecessor, the magical Eineck Fabian Hürzeler, was less than feared.

The assist king

The legacy of coach Markus beginning at Werder Bremen includes a scandal surrounding his fake vaccination certificate, a nervous start to the 2021/2022 second division season – and the signing of Marvin Ducksch. The two knew each other from their time together in Kiel, and the fact that the coach was able to convince this anarchic attacker to move to the banks of the Weser earned him a sustainability award that was subsequently awarded. Ducksch, who was previously considered difficult to train, developed into the burden bearer of the Bremen offensive, has since been called up to the German national team and can currently claim the unofficial title of “best preparer of the 2024 calendar year”. He contributed twelve assists during this period – the last one so far on Saturday in the 4-1 win against Union Berlin, where Ducksch took a pass with his heel and carefully crossed it to Jens Stage. “It was a mature and adult performance from start to finish,” said the 30-year-old afterwards. That sounded mature and grown up. Ducksch rarely talks about himself anymore, preferring instead to talk about the overall performances of the Bremen team.