By Sebastian Karkos
What do national player Robin Gosens (29) and talent Aljoscha Kemlein (19) have in common? Surprising answer: Both celebrated their Bundesliga debut against Mainz (4:1) as a joker for 1. FC Union.
During the use of Gosens was to be expected (the national player was signed by Inter Milan a week ago for around 15 million euros), the substitution of small surprised. In his sixth year as a Union coach, Urs Fischer (57) only brought on a homegrown player for the fourth time!
Kemlein came against Mainz in the 89th minute and had five ball contacts. At 19 years and 18 days, the defensive midfielder is now Union’s youngest Bundesliga player of all time. Hopefully it wasn’t his last game with the pros. For its three “predecessors” it stayed with the premiere …
► On the 20th matchday of the 2018/19 season, striker Berkan Taz (now Mannheim) played his only second division game for the Irons at St. Pauli (2: 3) from the 78th minute.
Talent Tim Maciejewski could not prevail at Union, now plays in Sandhausen Photo: picture alliance / Andreas Gora
► Tim Maciejewski (now Sandhausen) played seven minutes in his first and last Bundesliga appearance (November 2020/ 5-0 against Bielefeld).
► Laurenz Dehl came on as a substitute in the 84th minute of the Conference League playoff second leg against Kuopio (0-0) in August 2021.
So now number four. Kemlein is considered the greatest talent of the Irons and was in the Bundesliga squad for the first time in November 2022 in Freiburg (1: 4). On Sunday, the U19 national player benefited from the injury of Rani Khedira (29, Wade), who was replaced by new signing Alex Kral (25, Schalke) in front of the defence. This freed up a spot in the match day squad – which Kemlein got! Can he hope for more missions?
Gosens only with ten ball contacts
Gosens will definitely get more minutes. Substituted in the 66th minute, the left-back only had ten ball contacts according to the Bundesliga database. After all, he won all three of his duels and the three passes he played were successful.
The Iron will not have made the record transfer to put Gosens on the bench. But: Jerome Roussillon (30) showed against Mainz (the Frenchman prepared the first Behrens goal) that he is not willing to give up his place on the left …