OstDeutscher Sieg | Part 33 | Record-Breaking Form

Ruprecht Prusseit needed a little time away from football after seeing his Union Berlin miss out to perennial Bundesliga champions Bayern München on the final day for a second season in a row. But he came back to work refreshed and eager to take Bayern down.

He came into the summer of 2037 with the club’s bank balance standing at £232m. That was boosted by selling underperforming players like midfielder Gerhard Seibert to Monaco for £11.25m, centre-back Mikalus Mraz to Nice for £6.75m and full-back Mathias Nilsson Morsing to Valencia for £12m. However, they also lost promising centre-back Jean-Paul Vogt to Man City for a club record £45m.

More exciting talents arrived in their place starting with smashing the club’s transfer record to sign right-back Zé Serrao for £38.5m from Braga. Prusseit also toughened up the midfield with massive 6ft 6in ball-winner Samuel Pereira and brought in a promising goalkeeper in 17-year-old Danny Johnston for £2.5m from Freiburg.

Prusseit’s thinking time early in the summer also saw him decide to ditch the dull two holding midfield formation he’d used for the last couple of seasons. He now had exciting attacking full-backs and attackers that could play wide or centrally, so he initially decided to go with a narrow 4-3-1-2 with a Trequartista in behind two strikers but also considered a 4-3-3 approach.

Into Bundesliga Season 6

Union Berlin are finally fancied for a top-half finish with a prediction of 8th and odds of 33/1. Bayern are obviously favourites at 4/5 having won 24 of the last 25 titles, followed by Leipzig (11/2), Dortmund (8/1), Freiburg (16/1) and Leverkusen (18/1).

Union began at home to promoted Mainz and the new formation looked pretty good as they dominated by 17 shots to six. But it took them a while to get the goal they deserved with Miroslav Milosevic’s penalty followed by Serrao creating a tap-in for Bruno Rodríguez. That earned the new right-back player of the match on his debut but he obviously then suffered a hernia in training.

Another home game followed and they kick on a level as striker Claudio Sepúlveda put the Gladbach defence to the sword with all four goals in a 4-0 victory. But their first away day of the season took them to Prusseit’s hated champions Bayern. An edgy game saw Bayern have the better chances but get a player sent off early in the second half. Milosevic’s 20-yard strike looked to have claimed a first win over Bayern only for the champions to again score a late goal to nick a point.

Prusseit decided to start Sepúlveda in the league games and Michael Storskov in Europe. And Sepúlveda justified that decision with three consecutive braces to edge a 3-1 win at Stuttgart, a more dominant victory at home to Leverkusen and a 3-0 win at St Pauli. Next up was derby day as Hertha came to town and Sepúlveda settled for one goal before Milosevic sealed a 2-0 victory.

And Union kept the good times going as Storskov came off the bench to score a last-minute winner at Nürnberg and Leandro repeated the feat at home to Freiburg. Then even a rotated side eased to a 2-0 win at Arminia Bielefeld thanks to another Sepúlveda brace. And that saw Union win a new club record 11 consecutive games in all competitions.

Champions League League Phase

Union got a kinder set of fixtures for their second season in the Champions League, with the opening day and final day trips to Porto and Liverpool posing the toughest tests.

However, Union made light work of their first game, going to Porto and scoring with every shot on target to win 5-0 led by a Storskov brace and Markus Ambrosius’ first goal for the club. Next up they hammered Poznan with 21 shots to three but relied on Storskov’s goal just before half-time for a narrow win. But they were more clinical at Rennes as they scored five for the second away game on the bounce, this time with Storskov scoring all five in a 5-2 victory.

Union were taking the Champions League by storm as early Grga Picak and Leandro goals set up a 3-0 win over Feyenoord, which took them top of the league above Real Madrid and Barcelona!

Another home game followed against 33rd-place Brest, who’ve finished 2nd to PSG three times in a row, but Prusseit had to rotate and they did well to draw 0-0. But a much better performance in Austria saw them dominate Wolfsberger by 26 shots to zero and won 3-0 led by a Storskov brace. That sees Union sitting 2nd, three points clear of 9th place with two games remaining. Storskov is the tournament’s top scorer with 10 goals and has the highest average rating of 8.22.

Surprise Top Of The Table Clashes

Ten games into Bundesliga, Union had only dropped points once in a superb start to the campaign. Elsewhere, Bayern actually dropped points as they lost at home for the first time in three seasons and the second time in eight seasons in a 2-0 defeat to St Pauli, drew with Stuttgart and Hertha then lost 3-2 at Freiburg.

That teed up a couple of slightly surprising top-three clashes as Union went to Wolfsburg then hosted Leipzig. The top two played out an exiting game with 32 shots, 19 of which went in Wolfsburg’s favour. But few of those threatened the goal and an own goal settled the game as a Wolfsburg defender turned home Sepúlveda’s harmless cross. Leipzig had the better of the next game, with 13 shots in the first half without finding a way through. But Union were pretty toothless despite creating more in the second half and the two sides settled for a 0-0. And Prusseit had to be happy with two clean sheets.

However, Union’s long 16-game unbeaten run ended with a 1-0 defeat at Köln, who climbed to 2nd in the league. And later that day, Bayern lost again 3-1 at Hoffenheim! The run of highly unentertaining games continued as Sepúlveda ensured Union bounced back with a 1-0 win at home to Hamburg – making it two goals scored and one conceded in four games!

The striker was at it again as Union entertained Dortmund. He latched onto a long hoof clear by Lee Kwang-Sun and headed the ball over the keeper from 25 yards for the opener! He added a second 10 minutes before half-time then wrapped up a perfect hat-trick just after the hour mark to seal a huge 3-1 victory.

Union wrapped up 2037 with a 2-1 win at Frankfurt thanks to a rare Satoru Iida strike and Storskov’s late winner. While 2nd and 3rd place Bayern and Köln drew 1-1. That saw Union open a huge 10-point lead heading into a month-long break. Sepúlveda is the top scorer in the league with 18 goals along with a league-high six player of the match awards and second-best 7.51 average rating. While Lee has a league-high 11 clean sheets, only conceding in six matches!

Union’s Youngsters Rewarded

Union maintained their grip on the FIFA Best U21 Men’s Player as Milosevic won the award with a clean sweep of the top three as last year’s winner Rodríguez in 2nd and Sepúlveda in 3rd. Then a surprise decision saw backup Slovenian midfielder Anton Çerne win European Golden Boy.