Berlin – Urs Fischer is generally not known as the big party beast on the sidelines. Where other coaches let out all their emotions and would like to hug everything and everyone, the 1. FC Union coach stayed true to himself on Thursday evening, taking the goals and his team’s 3-0 (1-0) victory against Maccabi Haifa only acknowledges with a smile. The Swiss would have had reason to be a little more euphoric, if only because of his successful personnel damage.
Excursion of the delegates to the old forester’s house
Games in Europe are still very special for the Unioners. The Conference League experience should be enjoyed as intensively as possible. Connections and friendships are built not only on, but also next to the pitch. For example, press spokesman Christian Arbeit described the first home game of the Köpenicker in the newly created competition as a “festival of encounters” before the kick-off and was happy about all the joint activities that had occurred during the day with Maccabi and representatives of Jewish life in the city. An excursion to the actual home of the Iron was not to be missed. The delegations of both clubs posed for a photo on the lawn of the stadium An der Alten Försterei wearing a fine thread, holding a fan scarf with the coats of arms of both clubs and the logo of the trophy of this European competition in their hands.
The Olympic Stadium, which was once again bathed in red, marked the end of the tour. Here the Unioners had reached the group stage of the Conference League, the first points should be scored here in the evening. Unsurprisingly, Urs Fischer switched to a back four in defense, but with his personnel changes, he certainly caused a bit of astonishment. This time Frederik Rönnow was preferred to Andreas Luthe in goal and the duo Max Kruse and Taiwo Awoniyi were given a break in attack. For this, the recently convincing Andreas Voglsammer and Kevin Behrens moved into the starting line-up.
In anticipation of a similar game of patience as the last one against Arminia Bielefeld, the more physically robust, rather than the finer blade should be used against the low-lying Israelis. The players in the green and white jerseys mainly built themselves up in their own half, and they wanted to limit the Union’s attacking efforts from the start, perhaps with a counterattack, for their own risk. But in the first half that came exclusively from the Berliners.
And mostly on the right side, where Christopher Trimmel often sent Sheraldo Becker down or even hit a flank himself in the direction of Andreas Voglsammer and Kevin Behrens. Union Berlin went to work dominantly, had well over 60 percent possession, but initially no clear scoring opportunities. A long-range shot by Kevin Möhwald after just under 30 minutes was something of the most dangerous action, but was corrected in the follow-up by Maccabi keeper Joshua Cohen.
A little later, however, one of these attacks should be crowned with success. Genki Haraguchi’s cross was not really cleared and brought Behrens to the ball, which marched to the baseline and whose cross was in turn pushed into the goal by Voglsammer (33.). The defenders of Maccabi had nothing to counter the power of the two attackers. With the 1-0 lead, not much changed until the break – the iron had the game and the opponent under control, let the ball run through their own ranks and did not let anything burn at the back because nothing could have burned.
After Voglsammer and Behrens, Awoniyi also meets
It was even more reassuring two minutes after the break when Trimmel once again brought one of his dangerous free kicks into the penalty area, where Behrens prevailed in the header duel and the second striker also scored 2-0. As a result, the iron had everything under control, allowed practically nothing and had a few options to switch. Voglsammer and Behrens had met, worked a lot and were allowed to go to the bank early. Among other things, Taiwo Awoniyi got a few more minutes and, beautifully staged by Becker, promptly scored to 3-0 (76th). At the latest then Urs Fischer could have been a little more extroverted.
