While Urs Fischer and his team almost routinely spoke of a “nice snapshot” after the highest Bundesliga victory in the club’s history and the brief jump to the top of the table, a Schalke player a few meters away complimented them in the fight for the championship. “They don’t have the quality of Bayern Munich,” said Maya Yoshida about 1. FC Union. “But they follow their structure very strictly and play well. Just like Leicester City a few years ago.”
In 2016, the team with Berlin’s Robert Huth, the later world champion N’Golo Kanté and goalscorer Jamie Vardy surprisingly managed to win the English championship – with a large lead over the big clubs from Manchester, London and Liverpool, who were used to success. It was a modern football fairy tale that shouldn’t actually be possible in the billion-euro Premier League business and for which there is still no logical explanation.
That also applied a bit to Berlin’s success in Gelsenkirchen on Saturday. At least in this clarity. “The result was definitely too high in the end,” said Fischer, and no matter which Berliner said after the 6-1, everyone raved about the incredible efficiency. It wasn’t that Union played badly. The European Cup participants mostly stood safe, countered dangerously, had more grip than Schalke in crucial situations. But it really wasn’t an offensive gala that deserved six goals. The statistics also supported this.
The Internet platform “understat.com” calculated a value of 1.07 expected goals for Union. Put simply, based on the quality of their chances, the Berliners should have scored a little more than one goal. Such a discrepancy between statistics and actual yield is extraordinary and speaks for two factors: a great callousness in the end and a good portion of luck. Like Sheraldo Becker’s first goal, which was deflected into an untenable direction, or Janik Haberer’s shot on Sunday.
So it was quite appropriate that the Berliners, despite the historic result – Union never won higher in the second division and the GDR Oberliga – did not immediately erupt in jubilation. “6:1 always sounds good, but it’s important for us to classify the result correctly,” said Haberer and his coach found several points of criticism. In the first half in particular, his team acted “drowsy, sometimes jittery” after a good start.
Against a playfully limited and mentally unstable opponent like Schalke, the mixture of compactness, switching game and efficiency was enough, but Fischer knows very well that it won’t always work that way. This applies in particular to next Saturday, when the great FC Bayern will be honored at the An der Alten Försterei stadium. For the top game. Between the leader of the table and his pursuer who has the same number of points. “It’s a beautiful picture, you can frame it as a photo. But I’m interested after the 34th match day,” said Fischer, as usual sober.
They would never describe themselves as Bayern competitors in Köpenick anyway. Fischer completed a banking apprenticeship as a young professional, numbers are closer to the Swiss than fairy tales à la Leicester. Ten points after four games therefore primarily mean for Union: only 30 points left before relegation. The newcomers quickly internalized this official terminology. “For us it’s very important that we collect points in the normal weeks and work out a cushion. It will be difficult weeks,” said midfielder Haberer.
With the game against Bayern, a huge stress test starts for the Berliners. Apart from the international break at the end of September, Union plays in three-day cycles for two and a half months. 18 games in 70 days. Travel to Braga, Brussels, Malmo. It’s hard to imagine that the team will continue to score as consistently as they do now. The Berliners have broken through the limits of what is imaginable with impressive regularity over the past four years and then shifted them.
Especially since Union is even broader this season than in the past. “From next week it will be English weeks. We have a large squad and need a large squad,” said Fischer. On Saturday, the coach could afford to leave captain Christopher Trimmel, Genki Haraguchi and Andras Schäfer on the bench for the entire 90 minutes.
U-21 national player Jamie Leweling, who came from Fürth in the summer for four million euros, has only played a supporting role, along with Milos Pantovic, Paul Seguin, Tim Skarke and Levin Öztunali. Tymoteusz Puchacz, Rick van Drongelen and Kevin Möhwald are completely on the sidelines and should preferably find a new club in the last few days before the transfer ends.
