Sometimes it takes a look back to realize how fast-moving time is. When 1. FC Union was about to start the second part of the previous season in January 2023 after a short winter break, the Berliners were in fifth place with 27 points. 15 match days were completed and the dream of taking part in international business was alive. At the same time, VfB Stuttgart was in the relegation zone with only 14 points and was threatened with relegation.
Why are the Swabians mentioned here? Now that a year has passed, the football world looks very different when it comes to the two clubs. Before the restart of the current season, VfB Stuttgart is in third place with 34 points after 16 games already played and has the best prospects of making it onto the international stage. 1. FC Union, on the other hand, which still has to play a catch-up game against Bayern, is fighting to stay in the league almost five years after being promoted to the Bundesliga. With just 13 points, he is in 15th place. It is the interim result of what has been a disastrous season for the Berlin team, who are playing at SC Freiburg this Saturday (3:30 p.m., in the WELT sports ticker).
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When it was recently necessary to classify the sporting decline, which included a series of nine Bundesliga defeats between the 3rd and 12th matchdays, Dirk Zingler also found it difficult to give real reasons for the failure. In an interview published on the club’s homepage, the president, who has been in charge of 1. FC Union since 2004, rejected, among other things, the accusation of having signed players last summer who did not fit the club.
“We will have to reposition ourselves”
“We haven’t changed anything, nothing. We brought in great guys who play a great role in the dressing room and who play a great role on the pitch. None of the new guys and neither Urs Fischer (former coach, the editorial team.) Oliver Ruhnert (Managing Director of Sport, the editorial team) are to blame for the fact that we have lost our self-evidence,” said the President – and outlined a long path back to a top team. “We will see changes in the squad. We will have to reposition ourselves, we will have to start again.”
The season had started well for his club. Union first defeated Mainz 4:1, then Darmstadt 4:1. It seemed as if things would run as before for the fifth Bundesliga season in a row: smoothly and successfully. There was also a lot of applause for the club’s shopping spree, which qualified for the Champions League for the first time – and signed well-known players such as Robin Gosens (Inter Milan), Kevin Volland (AS Monaco) and Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus Turin).
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But as promising as it all was, the opening victories were followed by defeats against Leipzig (0:3) and Wolfsburg (1:2) – and immediately afterwards one that was to be expected, but was painful because of the way the game went and now almost symbolizes all of that. what has gone wrong since then. Until the fourth minute of added time, Union had kept a 0-0 draw at Real Madrid in their first Champions League game on September 20th last year. But then Jude Bellingham made it 1-0 with the last action and thus the victory for the Royals.
The luck that had often favored 1. FC Union was suddenly over. Shots from the opponent that previously went just wide of the goal suddenly led to goals. Own shots that had previously led to goals and usually to victory ended up hitting the crossbar, the post or next to the goal. In addition, two cornerstones of the team, Rani Khedira and Robin Knoche, were injured for a long time and one of Berlin’s weapons, compact defense and only allowing a few chances, was no longer a reliable weapon.
Two important victories before Christmas
In mid-November, the sporting crisis finally culminated in the departure of Urs Fischer. The coach from Switzerland who was hired at Union in 2018, managed to get promoted to the Bundesliga a year later, then stayed in the league and finally qualified for the Conference League, the Europa League and finally the Champions League. Fischer was followed by Marco Grothe as an interim solution before Nenad Bjelica arrived, who recorded two important victories over Mönchengladbach and Cologne before Christmas.
Even though the winter break was only short at three weeks, it offered time for reflection. Also for Christopher Trimmel, the captain. He has been with Union since 2014. He told the magazine “11 Freunde”: “After the summer we were unlucky, then there were individual mistakes that we hadn’t made before, and in the next game the evaluation of the chances wasn’t right. It was never really terrible, but there was always something else that wasn’t right. We continued to do our job well and put in a huge amount of effort because that’s just the character of the team. We just continued to lose, and that leaves its mark. Suddenly you think: What are we doing? Are we perhaps not as good as we thought we were? Is there something fundamentally wrong?”
Questions about questions. As far as the answers are concerned, they are apparently still looking – and in the person of managing director Ruhnert, they are currently working intensively on adjusting the squad. European champion Bonucci is about to move to Fenerbahce Istanbul. Sheraldo Becker, whose contract expires in the summer, has been linked with an early departure to Villareal. Aljosha Kemlein has been loaned out to second division club St. Pauli until the end of the season, while David Fofana is returning to Chelsea. Defender Kevin Vogt (1899 Hoffenheim) has been confirmed as an entry, Petar Musa, who was at Union in 2021 and currently plays for Benfica Lisbon, and Yorbe Vertessen (PSV Eindhoven) are under discussion.
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It remains to be seen whether they will be of any help to 1. FC Union if they all come. However, coming and going is certainly not conducive to the homogeneity that has characterized the squad for years, but which has been lost this season.
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