Union Berlin became the first team from East Germany ever to win Bundesliga as Ruprecht Prusseit and his exciting young squad lifted the famous trophy in May 2038. That completed Prusseit’s 16-year journey from a Sunday League nobody to a German title winner and one of the best managers in the world.
The Union players, staff and directors spent many a night frequenting the packed-out Berlin beer halls celebrating with their jubilant fans. One such night got a little too rowdy as Prusseit filled a tour bus with Pilsners and champagne and very drunkenly led the celebrations with a megaphone in hand screaming “Sweet Sepúlveda” to the tune of Sweet Caroline. If he was honest, he couldn’t remember anything about the evening, but he did have many an embarrassing reminder courtesy of round-the-clock TV coverage of his antics.
After giving himself and his players a few days away to recuperate, Prusseit reset his mind for the challenge of defending Union’s maiden league title. In fact, he had already secured the services of an exciting wonderkid before the title was won.
Union’s success and three record sales in three years had seen the club’s bank balance bloom to over £360m. While Prusseit now had a £122m transfer kitty and an unused wage budget of £1.4m out of the £2.2m available to work with coming into the summer.
Three additions arrived as the transfer window opened. The pick of them was Leandro Van Dessel, who joined for £26.5m from Anderlecht and looked like a superstar already at the age of 18 but didn’t have a natural position that fitted into Prusseit’s current formation. He was joined by left-back Fabien Camus for £28.5m from Marítimo and left-back Takayoshi Wada for £1.1m from Funabashi Bandits. A few days later, centre-back Nick Madzar arrived from Dinamo Zagreb for £10.75m.
Given Van Dessel’s preferred position, Prusseit decided to switch up his formation again. He moved to a 4-2-3-1 with Satoru Iida in a holding role and Van Dessel playing as a shadow striker in behind Claudio Sepúlveda.
More Silverware On The Line
The new formation looked very good in its first outing against Frankfurt in the DFL-Supercup. Union dominated the first half with 16 shots to one and eventually made one count as Grga Picak drilled home from 25 yards. Miroslav Milosevic converted a penalty before Sepúlveda, who improved further after playing at the World Cup in the summer, got his customary goal. Union Berlin won their first DFL-Supercup and their third major trophy overall.
Union’s First-Ever Title Defence Begins
Union were now fancied as fourth favourites to win Bundesliga with odds of 14/1. Bayern remain favourites at 4/6 followed by Leipzig at 9/1 and Dortmund at 13/1. While new boy Van Dessel is the only Union player in the media dream 11.
Union’s defence began well in Leverkusen’s first-ever match at the Ulf Kirsten Stadium. Milosevic and centre-back Abdelkadir Belkacem scored inside the first 15 minutes and they held on for a 2-1 win. And another good performance followed in their first home game as Iida and Sepúlveda goals earned a 2-0 win over Freiburg.
A big early test saw Union face a trip to Bayern, who Prusseit still hadn’t beaten in 13 attempts, in late August. The two teams shared 43 shots in an entertaining game but Union scored one of theirs through Bruno Rodríguez after nine minutes then held firm for a huge first win over Bayern.
Union took confidence from that, hammering Gladbach 4-0 led by a Sepúlveda brace then the striker’s 95th-minute strike earned a 1-0 win at Frankfurt. The defence proved extremely solid as striker Fredrik Fossdal scored the only goal off the bench at home to slow-starting Dortmund and a 2-0 win at Nürnberg with goals by Rodríguez and Milosevic. But they finally let one in as a Sepúlveda double downed 4th-place Hamburg 2-1.
An eight-game winning start ended as they nicked a 1-1 draw at city rivals Hertha. They conceded twice at home to Köln but scored five led by Rodríguez and Sepúlveda braces before a Sepúlveda hat-trick inspired a 4-1 win at Wolfsburg.
That teed up a clash of the top two as Union entertained fellow OstDeutscher side RB Leipzig in late November. Union started the better only for Leipzig to score their first shot on target. They continued to play well as both teams had their fair share of chances and eventually got their reward in bizarre fashion as a Rodríguez cross looped up in the air for Fossdal to head home. And they settled for a 1-1 draw.
Union wrapped up the calendar year with a bunch of games against teams in the bottom half. They returned to winning ways by defeating Jahn Regensburg 2-1 before a Sepúlveda hat-trick downed Werder Bremen 3-0. But an exhausted team lost 2-1 at Fortuna Düsseldorf three days after a Champions League tie.
They wrapped up the year by hitting seventh heaven, thumping St Pauli 7-1 led by another Sepúlveda hat-trick and a Rodríguez brace, then putting four past Stuttgart away.
That took Union into the winter break having only dropped points three times and enjoying a six-point lead over Bayern and a seven-point lead over Leipzig. Sepúlveda is dominating Bundesliga, with 19 goals putting him seven clear of Freiburg striker Nelson Weiper. While Rodríguez leads the way with a 7.69 average rating followed by new boy Van Dessel’s 7.55.
Brutal Champions League Fixtures
The ridiculous nature of the new Champions League format was portrayed by Union’s outrageous fixtures, starting with games against Arsenal, Liverpool and Madrid and, predictably, they played Newcastle after selling Michael Storskov to them.
Unsurprisingly, Union lost 2-0 at Arsenal, 1-0 to Liverpool, who cruelly scored a 91st-minute winner, and got thumped 3-0 at home to Madrid. But they finally got on the board as Fossdal’s injury-time winner nicked a 2-1 victory at Porto and backed it up by hammering Salzburg 5-0 away. And Storskov obviously scored as Milosevic earned a deserved point at Newcastle. That left Union in 19th place going into the final two games.
Union’s first title defence was going very well, enjoying a decent lead over Bayern and Leipzig. However, they’ve been heavily reliant on Sepúlveda, who’s scored 24 goals in 25 games in all competitions. Although the promising Van Dessel has hit the ground running with six goals, seven assists and a 7.53 average rating in 23 games. And that saw him win European Golden Boy, making it four years in a row that a Union player has won the award.
Could Union maintain their strong start to the campaign and defend their Bundesliga title? Join us on Monday to find out!
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