Union Berlin had made a flying start to their Bundesliga title defence, taking a seven-point lead into 2043. The onus was now on Ruprecht Prusseit to maintain his side’s good form to win their fifth title and target a second Champions League success.
They had a very quiet January transfer window as Prusseit had tied all his key players down to new five-year deals in October and wasn’t willing to move on any of his squad players. But he did bring in one new addition as another Uruguayan striker, which takes the club to three, arrived in 18-year-old Pablo Bermudez for £3.5m from Peñarol.
Bundesliga Defence Continues
2043 began with a home game against Hamburg and Bermudez, who started in place of the injured Claudio Sepúlveda, impressed his new supporters immediately by scoring twice on his debut in a 3-0 victory. Prusseit then celebrated his 900th game as a Football Manager with a 2-2 draw at Freiburg.
Union kicked back into form as a hat-trick from the best player in the world Sepúlveda inspired a 6-0 hammering of Hoffenheim. But an injury-hit side dropped more points in a wild 3-3 draw at Leipzig, in which left-back Henrique Duarte’s first goal for the club rescued a late point, then critically a second defeat of the season 2-1 at 2nd-place Leverkusen, who moved to within four points of Union.
Champions League Progression
Union’s final two league phase games were potentially tricky trips to Roma and PSG. But they confirmed a top-eight place as Sepúlveda and José Marco strikes earned a 2-1 win in Italy, which allowed Prusseit to rotate for PSG and they unsurprisingly lost 5-0. But Union still finished 5th.
The round of 16 served up an all-OstDeutscher clash as Union took on Leipzig. The away leg was up first and Leipzig had a player sent off after just six minutes for a shocking challenge, which allowed Union to dominate and win 3-1 with goals from Leandro Van Dessel, Sepúlveda and substitute Dylan Feraud. And a 1-0 win at home eased them through.
That teed up a huge quarter-final clash with PSG. The home leg was up first and the visitors started the better only to gift Sepúlveda the opener just before half-time thanks to a goalkeeping howler. And a minute later, winger Miroslav Milosevic sent the striker through to double his tally. PSG further tipped the tie in Union’s favour with a shocking own goal before Sepúlveda turned creator, sending Van Dessel through to slam home a fourth. And a 2-0 win in France earned an easy 6-0 aggregate victory.
Union’s semi-final opponents were the 2041 and 2042 runners-up Arsenal. The first leg was in England and Union made a flying start as Bruno Rodríguez played in his opposite winger Milosevic for the opener and Sepúlveda headed home Van Dessel’s corner to make it 2-0 inside half an hour. Arsenal fought back with two goals through two identical back post headers in three minutes, but Union had the last laugh as José Marco drilled home for a narrow angle late on.
Arsenal had to play a league game between the two legs while Union had a weekend off but lost Sepúlveda for two weeks with a damaged heel. Union again made a bright start thanks to some shocking defending as the Arsenal centre-back passed the ball straight to Rodríguez, who played Milosevic through for the opener after six minutes. Arsenal were back in it a few minutes later but immediately shot themselves in the foot again with an own goal before a superb Milosevic through-ball repaid the favour to Rodríguez, who coolly tucked the ball into the bottom corner on 17 minutes. On the verge of half-time, Rodríguez crossed the ball to Milosevic, who controlled it on his chest and brilliantly volleyed into the top corner to make it 4-1 on the night. And that proved to be all they needed to reach a third final in four years with a 7-3 aggregate win.
Bundesliga Title Race Hots Up
Union came into the final 10 league games with a four-point lead over Leverkusen and a five-point lead over Bayern, who’d suddenly climbed back into the title race. They began the run-in well as Sepúlveda bagged a hat-trick to defeat Osnabrück 4-0 then a brace and an assist for Van Dessel downed Werder Bremen 3-0. A role reversal saw Van Dessel score twice and lay on the third for Sepúlveda in a 3-1 win at Wolfsburg but the Chilean retook centre stage with both goals in a 2-0 win at Gladbach, which took him to 40 league goals for the season.
Bayern also kept winning, which meant the clubs were separated by five points with six games remaining when Bayern made the trip to Berlin after the March international break. Bayern started the better but Union took the lead after half an hour as Van Dessel’s free-kick was headed home by José Marco. They again had Van Dessel to thank 10 minutes after the break as he dug out a ridiculous cross from the corner flag for Sepúlveda to rise highest at the back post and head home from two yards out. And that proved enough for a probable title-winning victory.
They built on that with a rotated side winning 3-1 at Wolfsburg led by a brace from young midfielder Moise Vlad Paul and a Milosevic assist hat-trick. Sepúlveda and Van Dessel goals earned a 2-0 win at home to Jahn Regensburg the day before Bayern only drew at Stuttgart, which saw Union defend their Bundesliga crown and win a fifth title in six years!
Prusseit fully rotated his team and they drew 1-1 at Köln and 2-2 at home to rivals Hertha. They then went to fellow OstDeutscher side Magdeburg, who needed at least a point to avoid automatic relegation, and showed no mercy with a 5-2 victory led by Milosevic and Sepúlveda and braces. That final day win saw Union break Bayern’s league record of 101 goals that had stood since 1972.
That saw Union win the league by 10 points from Leverkusen, after Bayern had a poor end to the season. They finished on 86 points, scoring 103 goals and conceding 32. Sepúlveda again led the way with a ridiculous 45 goals in 31 games, which was three short of last season’s record tally, with Van Dessel in third with 19 goals. Sepúlveda also topped the average rating chart with 8.26, followed by Van Dessel (8.09) and Milosevic (7.67), and the player of the match awards with 11. While Van Dessel was the top assister with 23, which smashed Milosevic’s record of 18 set in 2041, followed by Milosevic (17) and Rodríguez (12).
As a result, Van Dessel won German Footballer of the Year for the first time since 2039, Sepúlveda won Players’ Player of the Year and Best Player in Europe, and Prusseit won Manager of the Year for the fifth time in six years and seventh time overall.
Third Champions League Final
Union were back in Europe’s biggest club game for the third time in four seasons. After defeat to Real Madrid in 2040 and a crushing win over Arsenal in 2041, the one-time European champions were up against Eddie Howe’s four-time winners and Premier League champions Manchester City, who beat Barcelona 2-1 on aggregate in the semis. 78,000 fans from England and Germany descended on Rome for what was a bit of an unknown as the two teams went head-to-head for the first time in this save (and probably ever) at Stadio Olimpico.
Neither side had any injury or suspension concerns, and Prusseit went with his first XI of:
Lee; Zé Serrão, Belkacem, Borborema, Poulos; Feraud; José Marcos; Milosevic, Van Dessel, Rodríguez, Sepúlveda
Subs: Bermúdez, Mihok, Wein, Bastholt, Pasini, Iida, Teviotdale, Pacheco, Paul, Duarte, Bergmann, Mascia
Union again got a flyer as a superb team move saw Van Dessel drift wide and play through Rodríguez, whose low cross was met by Feraud’s superb drilled finish after nine minutes. City did nothing until they scored their first shot on target after 32 minutes and undeservedly went into half-time at 1-1.
Very little happened after the break so Prusseit made a few little tactical tweaks to play a little wider and work ball into the box. But the breakthrough came with a delicious lofted pass by José Marco falling at the feet of Milosevic, who got in behind his man and finished cutely from a narrow angle on 77 minutes. Sepúlveda had a glorious chance to finish it off five minutes later but attempted a ridiculous chip when clean through on goal, which landed cleanly in the goalkeeper’s hands. But City offered nothing and Union safely held onto their lead.
Union Berlin were Champions of Europe for the second time!!
Reflecting On More Union Success
Prusseit had another superb season in Germany, leading his Union side to back-to-back German titles and becoming Champions of Europe for the second time in three years.
Sepúlveda once again led the goalscoring charts with 59 in 46, which was well short of last season’s phenomenal tally of 80 in 52. But the player of the season was arguably Van Dessel, who scored 28 and got 25 assists, followed by Milosevic with 15 goals and a club-high 27 assists. Rodríguez also impressed with 21 assists and 7 goals as did the excellent José Marco with 11 goals and 9 assists, while right-back Zé Serrão got a career-high 13 assists.
Away from the first team, Union’s U19s defended their UEFA Youth League and won their league for the fifth time in six years led by 36 goals in 46 games from striker Julian Fleischhauer.
The End Of OstDeutscher Sieg
This feels like the right time to bring this OstDeutscher Sieg to a close. We’ve successfully achieved our aim of winnig a first title for an East German club and established Union as the best team in Germany and arguably Europe. Also, the Union board repeatedly refuses to build a new stadium, despite the stadium being strangely limited to just 9,000 fans for European games. So it seems a bit pointless to take it any further.
That said, this series has been massive amounts of fun to play, and the Prusseit journey has been one of my favourites during my time creating Football Manager Stories on this website. I hope you enjoyed it and I’d firmly recommend taking on your own OstDeutscher Sieg. We’ll finish the series off with a final wrap-up post on Friday.
Football Manager Addict 
Leave a comment