The visitors came into the second round of the DFB Pokal on the back of a 1-0 defeat to Hannover at the weekend. Six new faces made their way into the starting eleven to face St. Pauli such as Mitch Langerak for Roman Weidenfeller in between the sticks. Other new faces included Shinji Kagawa and Ciro Immobile. Both of whom came on as late subs at the weekend.
St Pauli fared no better this past weekend as they were thumped convincingly by Karlsruher 4-0 at home. Lennart Thy, Enis Alushi and Ante Budimir all made way for Philipp Ziereis, Florian Kringe and John Verhoek in the starting eleven ahead of the game at the Millerntor in Hamburg.
Dortmund had an encouraging start to the encounter as they saw a high percentage of the ball. Particularly in the opposing half. Reus slotted Kagawa through but the midfielder wasted his opportunity, sending it far wide. Apart from that early scare it was an impressive defensive display from the hosts.
Hummels forced Tschauner into making a great save as he attempted to find the corner of the net. Soon after, Immobile tapped in from not even a yard out but the linesman had his flag up before the Italian could even contemplate celebrating.
Mkhitaryan danced through the now unnerved St Pauli defence but his corner destined shot took a bobble which enabled Tschauner to tip round the post.
Immobile put the ball in the back of the net for the second time of the night from close range after Kagawa helped on Großkreutz initial cross. This time there was no linesman's flag, allowing Dortmund to celebrate their opener just after the half hour mark.
Gonther forced Langerak into making a snap save up the other end not long after as he got a costless header to Daube's corner.
Reus got on the end of Mkhitaryan's reverse pass but was unable to find the back of the net as Tschauner saved strongly. On the stroke of half time Reus made no mistake this time as he found the far corner of the net following Immobile's unselfish cutback to double Dortmund's lead going in to half time.
Verhoek attempted to loop Langerak with a header shortly after the restart but with no success. Kringe tried his luck from range but his shot took a nick off of Verhoek on the way through and ended up wide of the mark.
Daube sent one goalwards but Langerak got down low to keep it out before an offside flag was raised against Daube.
Things went from bad to worse for the hosts who, despite looking a better side in the second half found themselves 3-0 as a result of Kagawa capitalising on Tschauner's botched clearance.
With their side 3-0 down the home support stuck by their side and stayed to the end and even belted out "You'll never walk alone" from the terraces to show their support.