HAMBURG, Germany -- "We love St. Pauli. The fabulous St. Pauli. We hate the Volkspark bastards. And beat the f---ing [insert opponent here]. If you can't hear us. We sing a little louder."
St. Pauli is one of the strangest, most unique clubs in the world. But it's also the German prototype: a club that sacrifices a layer of potential success in the name of giving fans exactly what they want most. It caps its ambition and is rewarded with love, loyalty and the best matchday atmosphere you'll find.
Both St. Pauli and German soccer as a whole can succeed at particularly high levels at times -- the latter more than the former -- but it requires both entities to get a lot of things right.