St. Pauli 3-3 Borussia Dortmund: Kovac´s men stunned by late comeback

Borussia Dortmund let a two-goal advantage slip late on as they drew 3-3 against St. Pauli in their Bundesliga curtain-raiser on Saturday.

Dortmund had Filippo Mane sent off five minutes from time, with goals from Danel Sinani and Eric Smith seeing St. Pauli completing the turnaround at Millerntor-Stadion.

Niko Kovac’s side took the lead in the 34th minute through Serhou Guirassy’s header, though the striker missed a penalty five minutes later to double Dortmund’s advantage.

And the hosts took full advantage of that reprieve, restoring parity five minutes after the break thanks to Andreas Hountondji, but Dortmund soon got themselves back in front.

Waldemar Anton’s deflected strike picked out the bottom right-corner, before Julian Brandt took down Pascal Gross’ ball over the top to give his team a two-goal cushion.

But St. Pauli were awarded a spot-kick after Abdoulie Ceesay was fouled by Mane, who was handed a straight red card, with Sinani tucking away the resulting spot-kick.

However, there was to be more late drama, with St. Pauli captain Smith finding the bottom-left corner with a brilliant drive to snatch a share of the spoils.

Full-time. pic.twitter.com/y8MDXYeMwj

— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) August 23, 2025

Data Debrief: Dortmund’s decade-long record vanishes

Dortmund were made to pay for a glut of missed opportunities here, having registered an expected goals (xG) tally of 1.42 from their eight shots, compared to St. Pauli’s 1.27 from their 11 attempts.

The result also saw Dortmund fail to win their first game of a new Bundesliga season for the first time in 10 years.

Guirassy was in the thick of it, and although he missed that penalty, he has now directly contributed to eight goals (seven goals, one assist) in his last six games in the top flight.