Jackson Irvine got an assist as St Pauli clinched promotion to the German Bundesliga on Sunday with a 3-1 home win over VfL Osnabruck.
Socceroos pair Irvine and Connor Metcalfe can now look forward to playing in Germany’s top flight in the 2024-25 season.
Irvine provided the touch for Oladapo Afolayan’s goal to make it 2-0 in the 58th minute, before Marcel Hartel’s 68th minute strike all but sealed the crucial win.
It must be said the Socceroo’s touch was fortunate, with his attempted shot from a cutback skewing into Afolayan’s direction to fire home.
Irvine and Metcalfe both played full games in the victory, which means St Pauli moves into top spot ahead of the final day where they’ll face John Iredale’s relegation battling Wehen Wiesbaden.
💥KABOOM!💥 Dapo Afolyan makes it a double to have @fcstpauli within touching distance of the @Bundesliga_DE! Final half hour is LIVE NOW on beIN! pic.twitter.com/SU7ZWTtrvO
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_AUS) May 12, 2024
Irvine said after the game: “My emotions are going crazy. I’ve never felt anything like it. Gratitude, joy, simply everything. I’m completely overwhelmed. It’s just incredible to see how much it means to people, not just us. Unglaublich!
“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.”
Kye Rowles and Cameron Devlin both earned 7/10 ratings in Hearts’ 3-0 home win over Dundee which locked in third spot in the Scottish Premiership.
Rowles put in a full shift and was rated 7/10 by the Edinburgh Evening Times who wrote: “Had the task of Bakayoko and you wouldn’t have noticed the towering frontman in the game, thanks to the work of the Socceroos defender.”
Devlin started and played 71 minutes, also earning a 7/10: “Impressive midfield form continued. Snapped into plenty of tackles and well deserved rest after 70 minutes.”
Mat Ryan kept a clean sheet as AZ Alkmaar cruised to a 3-0 win away to Go Ahead Eagles in the penultimate round of fixtures to stay in the hunt for third, and a UEFA Champions League qualifying spot, in the Dutch Eredivisie.
Ajdin Hrustic’s Heracles are still not mathematically safe after a 4-0 loss to struggling Excelsior on Sunday. Hrustic started and played 72 minutes.
Denis Genreau was absent as Toulouse stunned champions PSG 3-1 at Parc des Princes in the French Ligue 1 on Sunday.
Cristian Volpato was a 68th minute substitute for Sassuolo in a 2-1 loss to Genoa which leaves them 19th with two games to play in the Italian Serie A.
Others
Full games
Martin Boyle (Hibernian), Tyrese Francois (Vejle), Joshua Laws (Grasshoppers), Ryan McGowan (St Johnstone), Fran Karacic (Rudes), Mitch Langerak (Nagoya Grampus), Harrison Delbridge (Incheon United)
Minutes
Patrick Yazbek – ST 46, Nick D’Agostino – SB 80 (both Viking), Ryan Edwards – SB 86 (Amorebieta), Awer Mabil – ST 81 (Grasshoppers), Ryan Strain – ST 68, Keanu Baccus – SB 67 (both St Mirren), Tete Yengi – ST 67 (Livingston), Mitch Duke – SB 83 (Machida Zelvia), Aaron Calver – SB 75 (Daejeon Citizen), Peter Makrillos – SB 85 (Seoul E-Land), Brad Smith – SB 86 (Houston Dynamo)
Unused subs
Nectar Triantis (Hibernian), Alessandro Circati (Parma), Aleksandar Popovic (Gwangju FC), Lachlan Jackson (Suwon)
Absent
Craig Goodwin (Al Wehda)
