OstDeutscher Sieg | Part 28 | European Golden Boy

Union Berlin wrapped up back-to-back European campaigns for the first time in club history as they sealed a second successive 7th-place Bundesliga on the final day of 2035/35. And manager Ruprecht Prusseit was excited for the future as he secured the signings of some serious hot prospects that he felt gave him potentially the best young squad in Europe.

Union were also looking good off the pitch as the board cleared the club’s outstanding debts. The bank balance ticked up to £118m with a transfer budget of £63m and weekly wage budget of £758k, of which Prusseit was using just £470k.

The summer began with 34-year-old goalkeeper Mads Hermansen, who was the only Union player aged over 26, heading back to Denmark with Kobenhavn at the end of his contract. Prusseit also moved on players that weren’t up to it, bringing in £18m for wingers Gonzalo Abreu and Dúvier Canizalez, striker Dominic Frerking, centre-back Kresten Vilfort and both left-backs Ori Kanuk and Marcel Müller. While young striker Leandro went to Club América on loan.

Some serious talent arrived in their place, starting with eight players arriving when the transfer window opened. The pick of them was probably 19-year-old Chilean striker Claudio Sepúlveda, who cost £3.5m from Colo-Colo, along with wonderkid winger Omar Nzeyimana, who arrived for just £625k from Mamelodi Sundowns. 6ft 5in South Korean keeper Lee Kwang-Sun replaced Hermansen for £2.4m from Jeonbuk, while bigger outlays saw striker Miroslav Milosevic join for £6.25m from Red Star and centre-back Jean-Paul Vogt arrived for £11.25m from Feirense. Also worth keeping an eye on are winger Bruno Rodríguez, who cost £4.6m from Peñarol, and full-back Juanpa, who joined on a free from Junior FC.

The squad was now looking in a really good place, with every first-teamer having at least 3.5-star potential and 14 having 5-star potential. Prusseit was considering a tactical change, moving to a 4-2-4 or a 4-3-3 both utilising two holding midfielders, keeping last season’s successful 4-3-3 in his back pocket. But he was leaning towards the 4-2-4.

Back Into Conference League Qualifiers

Union were back in the qualifiers for the Europa Conference League, which began against Cypriot side Omonoia. The first leg in Cyprus was up first and a Grga Picak brace got them started before Vogt headed home on debut to seal a 3-1 victory. Nzeyimana got a start in the second leg and scored twice in the first 17 minutes before midfielder Gerhard Seibert wrapped up another 3-1 win. Next up was Serbian side Vojvodina and strikes by Picak and holding midfielder Satoru Iida sealed a 2-0 home win. And a Milosevic double back in his homeland earned a 3-2 defeat and 4-3 aggregate win to reach the league phase.

Flying Start To Bundesliga Season Four

The bookies had Union down to finish 13th with odds of 200/1 to win the league. Bayern remain huge favourites at 4/9 then Leipzig at 11/1, Stuttgart at 16/1 and Dortmund at 18/1.

Strangely, Union again began the season with three consecutive home games. They kicked off against Gladbach but went behind after 19 minutes and were 2-0 down after an hour. Milosevic got one back with a penalty on his first start then winger Lucas came off the bench to score twice in nine minutes and seal a thrilling 3-2 victory. Milosevic scored again, this time off the bench, to nick a 1-0 win over Leverkusen then Iida scored the only goal against St. Pauli.

Prusseit had started the season with the 4-2-4 and it had worked nicely, so he stuck with it for a big first away day as they travelled across the city to Hertha. The hosts dominated the game but Union nicked a set-piece goal through Mikulas Mraz and held on for a third 1-0 on the bounce. That briefly took Union top of Bundesliga for the first time until Bayern ruined their fun. A perfect start was disrupted by new keeper Lee suffering a lower back stress fracture. But that didn’t affect them at Hoffenheim, as last season’s heroes Picak and Michael Storskov scored their first league goals of the season in a 2-1 win, then at Frankfurt.

Union had been clinical so far but took that to new levels at home to Dortmund. Picak got the show started with a goal after six minutes then his brilliant run and cross laid on the second for Storskov before scoring his second inside half an hour. A crazy few minutes of injury time saw Dortmund score twice before Picak went down the other end to make it 4-2 in the 50th minute! Milosevic settled any nerves six minutes after the break before Dortmund got another back. Union even had three goals disallowed by VAR but settled for a thumping 5-3 victory, which was their first over the “big two” of Bayern and Dortmund.

An international break followed but Union maintained the momentum with Picak, Milosevic and Storskov all scoring again in a 3-2 win at bottom side Arminia Bielefeld. So eight wins from eight games and they still weren’t top thanks to Bayern! However, they did go top despite the winning start halting with a 2-2 draw at home to Stuttgart rescued by a late Nzeyimana penalty.

They stepped up the attacking threat at promoted Paderborn, racking up 4.55 xG as Milosevic opened the scoring before a Storskov hat-trick, all assisted by Rodríguez. However, Prusseit was concerned about their defensive efforts as they just edged a 4-3 victory, including conceding twice in the last five minutes.

Europa Conference League League Phase

Union got a tougher draw than last season, with fixtures against Lyon, Bodø-Gimt and København, but they should still have enough about them to qualify. They began at home to Antwerup and new boys Sepúlveda and Nzeyimana sealed a 2-1 opening win. A trip to Iceland to face Brei∂ablik followed and a heavily rotated side breezed to a 3-0 win.

The toughest game saw Lyon come to town and another rotated side dominated with Sepúlveda scoring again before Picak and Storskov came off the bench to wrap up a comfortable 3-0 win. A trip to Norway followed and Union failed to win a league phase game for the first time at the 10th attempt as they drew 0-0 with Bødo-Glimt. Two weeks later, they returned to Scandinavia and brushed København aside 3-0 with goals by Sepúlveda, Seibert and Lucas.

The league phase concluded by hosting fittingly named Faroese side B36 Tórshavn, who were 36th out of 36. Prusseit sent the lads out with an attacking approach and boy did that work. Union raced into a 10-0 half-time lead and settled for seven more after the break with Seibert, Milosevic and Nzeyimana hat-tricks and a Sepúlveda double hat-trick, including four in a seven-minute period, as they won 17 (Seventeen)-0!

Unsurprisingly, Union topped the league phase with 16 points, 28 goals and just one conceded to advance to the knockout phases.

Tackling A Tough Run Of Fixtures

A stellar start to the season saw Union Berlin top of Bundesliga after 10 games. But they faced a tough run of fixtures as the winter break edged closer. First up, Hamburg visited Stadion An Der Alten Föresteri and were brushed aside by close-range Picak and Storskov goals. But an international break saw key defender Mraz injured ahead of a big trip to Leipzig. And they lost their 11-game unbeaten start with a 3-2 defeat that Leipzig should have won by more.

Next up was a really tough game as Union welcomed 2nd-place Bayern, against whom they have an abysmal record. In 25 meetings in this save, Union have won one, lost the other 24, conceded 63 and scored just 16. And Prusseit had lost all six of his meetings with the champions. Prusseit prepared by resting his first 11 for a midweek DFB-Pokal game, which they lost 3-2 to Leverkusen, while Bayern played their strongest team – yet magically still had a fully fit team. But Union had the better of a fairly even game and got their reward as Storskov tucked home just after the break. And they appeared to be edging towards a huge win until, out of nowhere, Alphonso Davies scored a 30-yard screamer for an undeserved 94th-minute equaliser. Because of course he did. But on the positive side, that was Prusseit’s first point against Bayern.

Union returned to winning ways with a 2-0 success at 8th-place Freiburg with goals from the deadly front two of Milosevic and Storskov. That took them into a month-long winter break in a really strong position, especially as Bayern lost 2-1 at Leipzig then 3-2 at Freiburg.

Those two games both took place after Union’s trip to Freiburg as their European involvement again saw several games cancelled. As a result, they found themselves in 3rd place, just two points behind leaders Frankfurt and one point off Bayern with three games in hand on both!

Storskov again leads the club’s scoring charts with 15 in 25, of which 18 are starts, and worryingly is now wanted by the likes of Juventus, Milan and Spurs. But a key player has been his strike partner Milosevic in the deep-lying role, given he’s scored 13 in 20 with a 7.38 average rating.

Prusseit’s claims about having the best young squad in Europe were given some clout as impressive centre-back Mraz won FIFA Best U21 Men’s Player, with holding midfielder Iida in third, then the exciting Rodríguez became the first-ever Union player to win European Golden Boy.