When Hamburger SV and St Pauli last met, at the Volksparkstadion in April, their roles were reversed. HSV were favourites for promotion and their opponents were breathing down their necks. St Pauli had been called “HSV-Jäger” (“HSV-hunters”) by the German press, having turned around their form so spectacularly that they had gone from relegation candidates to six points behind their derby rivals in third. A win would have closed the gap to three and HSV, wild-eyed and exhausted, might well have been ensnared. In the end, though, the hunter became the hunted. Manolis Saliakas, St Pauli’s galloping wing-back, opened the scoring before wheeling away with his hands cupped behind his ears, but HSV rattled in three goals either side of half-time and, though the visitors rallied late on, it ended 4-3. When Jonas David, now on loan at Hansa Rostock, thundered in the equaliser from 25 yards, Tim Walter, the HSV coach, could not contain his relief, leaping on to the pitch along with most of his coaching staff and substitutes. At full-time, wreathed in a thick fog from the flares and smoke bombs in the stands, he and his team jumped to the rat-a-tat of the ultras’ drums and soaked in the adulation of more than 50,000 fans bathed in blue. When the sides meet at the Millerntor-Stadion on Friday evening, St Pauli will be the ones straining to evade the jaws snapping at their heels. It wasn’t meant to be this way, at least not as far as HSV are concerned. On the final day of last season, after HSV had won 1-0 at SV Sandhausen and risen to second, the final automatic promotion spot, it looked as if the fallen giants would finally clamber back up to the Bundesliga, where they spent an unbroken 55 years before their harrowing relegation in 2018. HSV fans celebrated on the pitch, as did Walter before holding up his hands in a futile effort to untempt fate, and Sandhausen’s stadium announcer even congratulated them on their success. What they could not know was that Heidenheim, having been 2-1 down at Jahn Regensburg going into injury time, would score twice to leapfrog HSV and condemn them to a promotion playoff, in which they would be swept aside by VfB Stuttgart. If St Pauli fans had been left stony-faced after defeat in the derby, HSV’s tragicomic end to the season at least gave them something to smile about. In fact, they have not stopped smiling since: the form team in the league after last season’s winter break, St Pauli have carried that momentum into this campaign and are unbeaten at the top of the table. HSV are three points behind in second. The chase is on. St Pauli’s manager, Fabian Hürzeler, has earned a reputation as one of the most promising tacticians in Germany. Aged 30, the former Bayern Munich youth player is the youngest coach in the division by far, drawing inevitable comparisons to Julian Nagelsmann. He has cited Nagelsmann as an influence, with both spending their formative years in Bavaria and following similar paths to the dugout. Hürzeler focused on coaching after injuries and other setbacks during his playing career and was promoted by St Pauli from the assistant’s job when Timo Schultz was sacked last December. St Pauli were nicknamed “Freibeuter der Liga” (“Buccaneers of the League”) as they cemented their counterculture status in the 1980s and 90s, adopting the Jolly Roger as their unofficial emblem, and have lived up to the moniker once more under Hürzeler. He puts a heavy emphasis on possession but they also rely on their marauding wingers and wing-backs to overload the forward areas. Dapo Afolayan, signed from Bolton in January, hit the ground running in the 2. Bundesliga and has not looked back, his lightning runs out wide and infield supported by Saliakas behind him. Up front, Johannes Eggestein, the former Werder Bremen forward, adds aerial threat, thundering into crosses from Afolayan and Elias Saad on either flank. The biggest improvement from last season has been in defence. Although St Pauli often shapeshift during a match, Hürzeler tends to start with a 3-4-3 with Karol Mets, Eric Smith and Hauke Wahl at the back. Mets, signed on loan in January then permanently in the summer, brings steel, Wahl, another summer addition, is the short-ball outlet, and Smith, a defensive midfielder by trade, mixes a long-passing quarterback role with surging runs into the middle of the park, defending on the front foot as the others anchor the line. St Pauli have the league’s tightest defence with only 11 goals conceded. The equation is completed by Marcel Hartel, the set-piece specialist in midfield who has hit a rich vein of goalscoring form, and Jackson Irvine, the box-to-box raider who is loved by fans for taking the bus to training, his social activism and, much like the club, being tied up in the alternative music scene. HSV are also possession-focused, though they have been less consistent at imposing themselves on opponents. Their efforts to build from the back are characterised by the way Daniel Heuer Fernandes, their goalkeeper, charges off his line, providing an extra out ball to his defenders, though at no small risk. With Bakery Jatta, their most influential wide player, suspended, they will be even more reliant on Robert Glatzel, the former Cardiff forward, who tops the 2. Bundesliga scoring chart with 10. Glatzel has been directly involved in just under half of HSV’s goals, having also tallied three assists thanks to his tendency to drop deep and orchestrate play. “[The derby] is a game like no other,” he said this week. “It’s got its own rules.” There is little doubt that sparks will fly – quite literally – in the stands. It’s often said that St Pauli and HSV are worlds apart, but their fans have more in common than they may like to admit: Hamburg has a buzzing lower-league scene and supporters of the two clubs often rub along fine on the terraces. St Pauli fans are famous for their leftwing politics, but there is not a simple political binary between the clubs: HSV fans come from all walks of life and all areas of the city. The difference is perhaps best understood as that between mainstream and countercurrent: HSV, the six-times German champions and former European Cup winners for whom commercialism is a fact of life, versus St Pauli, the second-division mainstays who have never won a major trophy and who, with their historical ties to the anarchist, punk and squatter movements, fiercely debate commercial influence at every turn even as the club has become a global brand. There is a deep antipathy between the clubs’ ultras, though, which often manifests itself on huge pre-match street marches and in banners taunting each other at games. That will make for a fiery atmosphere inside the Millerntor, where St Pauli have not lost a derby for more than four years. Underdogs by nature, they are now in the unfamiliar position of looking down on their rivals. “There are no favourites in this game,” said Hürzeler, when asked about St Pauli being frontrunners. “The truth lies on the pitch.”