FC St.Pauli vs. Borussia Dortmund – betting tip, prediction, odds for the DFB Cup match (18.01.2021, 20:45 CET)

In the 3rd round of the DFB Cup, FC St.Pauli and Borussia Dortmund will meet on Tuesday. The kick-off for the match at Hamburg’s Millerntorstadion is at 8:45 pm. The spectator capacity is limited to 2,000 due to the Covid19 situation. Here is our preliminary report and analysis of the match as well as a betting tip.

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What speaks for FC St.Pauli?

  • Nothing to lose as clear underdogs

What speaks for Borussia Dortmund?

  • The best team in the entire competition
  • Great chance to defend title again
  • Big difference in individual quality

Our betting tip

  • Tip: Asian Handicap Borussia Dortmund -1.5 
  • Bookmaker: 1xBet
  • Odds: 2.15

Every year there are two really important titles to be won in Germany. The German championship is one of them, and usually, the title goes to the south of Germany: serial winners Bayern Munich have been unstoppable in recent years, and this season it is hard to imagine anyone stopping Bayern Munich on their way to winning the title again. 

But then there is the cup. Here the race has not been quite so clear-cut in recent years. While Bayern Munich is also a perennial winner here, two teams have managed to break Munich’s dominance in recent years: Eintracht Frankfurt (2018) and Borussia Dortmund (2017 & 2021). And this time FC Bayern have been eliminated from the cup competition early on. So it is clear how important this DFB Cup match in the 3rd round is for Borussia Dortmund. Dortmund has a great chance to win the cup they won last year for the 5th time. They are the best team in Germany behind Bayern – they are undoubtedly the big favourites. But there is a well-known saying in Germany: The cup has its own rules! 

Dortmund’s opponents are not to be underestimated: They play against the current leader of the 2nd division, FC St.Pauli. And the team from Hamburg knows how to annoy favourites.

Expert analysis FC St.Pauli

St. Pauli still leads the table in the 2nd Bundesliga but have recently been far removed from the outstanding quality they showed for much of the first half of the season. They only managed to pick up two points from their last three games. Most recently, they lost important points against Erzgebirge Aue on Saturday – against a team that is deep in the bottom of the table and had previously lost four games in a row. The important equaliser for St.Pauli only came in the 2nd minute of injury time. At the same time, St.Pauli currently has no notable absences or problems due to Corona measures.

 
The key player for Hamburg is the Austrian goal-getter Guido Burgstaller, who leads the scoring charts of the 2. Liga with 14 goals in 19 games. Burgstaller used to play for Borussia’s arch-rivals FC Schalke 04 and will be particularly motivated. However, the cup match is followed by an even more important game for FC St.Pauli, the city derby against their great rivals Hamburger SV.

Expert analysis Borussia Dortmund

On Friday evening, Borussia presented itself in top form. The opponent was SC Freiburg, the surprise team of the season so far. But Dortmund held their nerve and easily won the game 5:1, again with two goals from their Norwegian superstar Erling Haaland, plus two goals from right-back Meunier. He will probably miss the game against St. Pauli, but with Wolf or Passlack dynamic alternatives are available.

Haaland is a key factor in Dortmund’s success. When he was out for an extended period in the autumn, Dortmund’s play faltered. This was followed by elimination from the Champions League and unnecessary losses of points in the Bundesliga.

Now, however, Haaland is back in top form and will pose almost insurmountable problems for St.Pauli defenders Medic and Ziereis. In addition to Meunier, Dortmund coach Marco Rose will have to do without the injured Emre Can, Giovanni Reyna and Dan-Axel Zagarou, who is ill with Covid-19. However, these are not absences that will have a negative impact on Dortmund’s game.

Head-to-head and stats comparison

No matter in which league St.Pauli played against Dortmund, it was always an unequal comparison. St.Pauli never had the budget of Dortmund. They have a total squad of just under 25 million. Every one of Dortmund’s regular players is worth more in his own right. And that’s how it has always been in the past. Of the last 10 encounters between the two teams, Dortmund has won 9 games. Only once in these ten has St. Pauli picked up a point – decades ago.

Our betting tip for FC St.Pauli vs. Borussia Dortmund

Anything other than a Dortmund victory in this match would be a big surprise. Dortmund has proven in the Bundesliga that they always do well against technically inferior teams who look for their chances defensively and stand deep. They usually have problems when a team gains possession and puts the Dortmund defence under pressure. But that is not to be expected from St. Pauli. Reus, Bellingham and especially the mighty Haaland are a number too big for the Hamburg team. 

We bet on a Dortmund victory with an Asian Handicap of -1.5. If Dortmund wins with a two-goal lead, the full profit is paid out.


1xBet offers a very attractive price of 2.15 for this game. If you prefer to bet on an easy win with 1 or more goals, you can get odds of around 1.45 at the same bookmaker.

Max Stargard
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By Max Stargard

Even as a child, I started typing the results of the Bundesliga with my friends at school. The stakes were modest back then: The lunch, a few marbles or maybe a milk slice. Then, at the age of 9, I played the penalty bet once - and immediately got 10 right. The previous week I had won 500 DM and in my childish imagination I was already imagining how many football pictures I could buy at the kiosk on the corner. Unfortunately, it was one of those match days when everything turned out as expected and I only won DM 8.10. Nevertheless, I followed the game with great interest. Nevertheless, the passion to correctly predict the outcome of sporting events haunted me for the rest of my life. I would have loved to own the sports almanac that Marty McFly bought in Back to the Future II. Much later, when I was already working as a journalist for newspapers and as a writer for television, I came across an international betting forum with over 100,000 members - and found out that a lot of people there were giving their tips on German football, but nobody seemed to have a real clue, so I wrote a few English-language preliminary reports with a few tips - and was right about everything. After that, an avalanche started. I got offers from bookmakers, sports papers and even betting syndicates to work for them - and I accepted a few of them too, experiencing the ups & downs of sports betting and travelling halfway around the world in the years that followed. There I met Chinese multimillionaires betting five to six figures, amateur players in Serbia or Turkey supporting their families with small stakes, South Africans gambling away half their fortune, Brazilians who could only leave their favelha and become rich by making the right tips. At one point my life was similar to Matthew McCaughaney's in the film Two For The Money - and far too much stress. I subsequently moved to another continent and ran an English-language football epaper about the Bundesliga from there. After the birth of my son, I devoted myself for many years only to artistic projects in the field of photography and literature. However, I am happy to share my knowledge and passion with the readers of bettingtipsafrica.