Joel Chima Fujita

Key strength: Work rate

Box-to-box midfielder

At the Millerntor Stadium, survival hangs by a thread. FC St. Pauli sit rock-bottom of the 2. Bundesliga, winless in their last five matches and staring relegation in the face. Yet amid the wreckage burns a relentless engine—24-year-old Japanese midfielder Joel Chima Fujita, whose €10 million valuation makes him the Kiezkicker's most bankable asset in a campaign threatening financial catastrophe. Fujita has been the definition of dependability: 34 appearances, 2,934 minutes, and scarcely a breather in a season where consistency has become his calling card. His returns—one goal and four assists—hardly leap from the page, but his 65-rated passing vision threads possession to attacking talents like Hákon Arnar Haraldsson, while five yellow cards betray the tenacity required to marshal a sinking ship. The Tokyo-born box-to-box dynamo embodies football's cruel arithmetic: individual excellence drowned by collective collapse. With defending and shooting both languishing at 55, Fujita must now conjure match-defining moments beyond his steady stewardship. Time is running out for St. Pauli. Their midfield metronome must find another gear.