Patrick Helmes Impresses In Leverkusen's 11-1 DFB Pokal Victory.

Saturday’s DFB Pokal games saw a few interesting results and a few shocks as well. Today’s matches saw Bundesliga newcomers St. Pauli drop out of the competition early, which certainly doesn’t suggest much heading into a Bundesliga season where they are one of the favourites for relegation. Despite their result, every other Bundesliga side performed admirably and got the job done against much weaker opposition.

St. Pauli were ousted from the competition by fourth division side Chemnitzer FC, which will come as a bad omen for St. Pauli and it’s fans as the Bundesliga season approaches. A loan goal from Andreas Richter early on decided the tie and condemned St. Pauli to defeat. While the defeat is not encouraging, it will allow St. Pauli to focus on survival in the Bundesliga this season and not have to worry about cup ties.

Elsewhere, Leverkusen absolutely thrashed fifth division side FK Pirmasens by a scoreline of 11-1, with a hat-trick from Patrick Helmes, doubles from Eren Derdiyok, Stefan Kiessling and Sidney Sam, and solitary goals from Renato Augusto and Arturo Vidal. While not much can be read into the result because of the massive gulf in class between the two sides, the flowing goals will boost the confidence of Leverkusen’s front men and they’ll have no problem netting next weekend after a good run out today.

Meanwhile, there were wins for Borussia Monchengladbach, Werder Bremen, SC Freiburg, Hoffenheim, Hertha Berlin, Borussia Dortmund, VfB Stuttgart, and 1860 Munich.