St Pauli seals promotion to Bundesliga
St Pauli, home of Australia stars Jackson Irvine and Connor Metcalfe, clinched a spot in the 2024-2025 Bundesliga with a 3-1 win over bottom 2.Bundesliga club VFL Osnabruck on the second last matchday of the season.
With one game left to play, St Pauli secured an unassailable six-point lead over the play-off spot and will play in the German top flight for the first time since its relegation at the end of the 2010-2011 season.
It is the Hamburg-based side's sixth promotion to the Bundesliga, as it prepares to embark on its ninth top-flight campaign.
Holstein Kiel will also go up, but St Pauli, led by captain and Socceroos regular Irvine who assisted one of the goals, will claim a maiden second-tier title if it matches or betters Kiel's result on the final day.
"My emotions are going crazy. I've never felt anything like it. Gratitude, joy, simply everything. I'm completely overwhelmed," Irvine admitted after the game.
"It's just incredible to see how much it means to people, not just us. Unglaublich! [Unbelievable].
"This is why I came here. I wanted to achieve something for the fans and give the people something and we've done that by getting promoted.
"We've all invested so much, week in, week out, and it's a huge honour to be captain of this team, something I don't take for granted.
"We had belief going into the game. We were prepared. We wanted to give our utmost and leave everything on the pitch and all of us gave everything to seal promotion. It was the only way we were going to go up.
"We sat down at the beginning of the season and placed the highest expectations on ourselves and that's the attitude we took into training every week. We gave our all, our hearts and we worked so hard and now we have this moment together. Amazing."