From BZ/dpa
Four days before the first Champions League game in the club’s history, 1. FC Union Berlin stumbled a little in the Bundesliga. The Berliners lost 1:2 (1:2) at VfL Wolfsburg on Saturday and suffered their second defeat in a row after the 0:3 against RB Leipzig.
On Wednesday evening (6:45 p.m./DAZN), Urs Fischer’s team has to improve significantly: Because the first Champions League opponent is the most successful you can have in this competition: Real Madrid has already won Europe’s most important club trophy 14 times.
Coach Fischer didn’t put up with the second Bundesliga defeat in a row so easily. 0:3 against Leipzig, now 1:2 in Wolfsburg: “I don’t think we’re looking forward to the game on Wednesday. This defeat needs to be dealt with and analyzed,” said the Swiss sternly.
“No game is easy in the Bundesliga. Accordingly, we shouldn’t all go crazy now,” said goalscorer Robin Gosens. “We have to take the important things from the game: the intensity. The desire to defend. I think you’ve already seen the Union’s face today.” However, they “lost a game that didn’t have to be lost. That’s why I stand here today as a relatively sad man.”
Robin Gosens scores with a header to make it 1-1 in Wolfsburg. VfL goalkeeper Casteels has no chance Photo: REUTERS/Annegret Hilse
In front of 28,917 spectators in Wolfsburg, Union started strong, but then literally invited VfL to take the lead in the 12th minute. Goal scorer Kevin Behrens lost the ball while building up the game and his Wolfsburg counterpart Jonas Wind made it 1-0 after a nice one-two with Lovro Majer. With his fifth goal of the season, the Dane moved past Behrens (4) in the Bundesliga top scorers list.
Only two minutes passed between Robin Gosens’ 1-1 (28th) and Joakim Maehle’s 2-1 (30th). Wolfsburg’s second Danish international scored his goal with a volley just outside the edge of the penalty area after Union goalkeeper Frederik Rönnow, also from Denmark, had initially cleared a VfL corner with a fist save.
Leonardo Bonucci was still on the bench in Wolfsburg Photo: City Press
Gosens and Wolfsburg, on the other hand: This is obviously a story that always starts with promise and then doesn’t end happily for the 29-year-old. Before the season, there were initially many signs that the national player would be transferred to the Volkswagen Club. The left-back was already in the city to take a look at the impressive training ground. Only when VfL did not want to meet Inter Milan’s transfer demands did Gosens move to Berlin.
Last weekend in Wolfsburg he became the first all-German national player in the history of 1. FC Union. In the 4-1 defeat against Japan, however, Gosens conceded a goal. And his third goal in the fourth Bundesliga game on Saturday wasn’t worth much either. Gosens headed home from Aissa Laidouni’s cross, then saluted in front of the south stand – and in the end drove home empty-handed.
Union was almost consistently superior, especially in the second half. But hardly anything came of it against Wolfsburg, who defended closely and uncompromisingly. VfL was more determined and stronger in duels. In front of his former sports director Jörg Schmadtke, who now works for Liverpool FC, he used exactly the means with which Union Berlin worked its way up from a second division team to a Champions League participant in just five years.
The fact that the Wolfsburg team hardly did anything on offense apart from a shot off the post by Tiago Tomas (87′) almost took revenge. Because Jannik Haberer (71st) and Sheraldo Becker (86th) missed two great header chances to make it 2-2 for Union.