Matchday 8 Recap: FC Ingolstadt 04 1- 2 1. Union Berlin

FC Ingolstadt 04: Knaller; Ananou, Matip, Galvao; Kerschbaumer, Gimber; Pledl, Otavio, Kittel (Röcher); Benschop (Kutschke), Lezcano (Osawe)

1. FC Union Berlin: Gikiewicz; Trimmel, Friedrich, Hübner, Reichel; Schmiedebach, Prömel, Kroos (Zulj); Gogia (Hedlund), Andersson (Polter), Hartel

Goals:
Ingolstadt: Kutschke, 80
Union: Andersson, 43; Gogia, 73

Post-penalty hugs for Andersson. source: Sportschau

Union Berlin scooped up their first away win of the season at Ingolstadt on Monday, lifting them to second place in the table on a record of four wins and four draws. That’s right, still no defeats for Union Berlin -- in the top three flights of German football, only Union’s upcoming DFB-Pokal opponent, Borussia Dortmund, can also boast an undefeated record at this point in the season. Yet the match against struggling Ingolstadt was still a little too close for comfort considering in what good form Union are right now in comparison with their opponents.

Looking at the possession statistics for this game via WhoScored, the two sides were almost equal, with Ingolstadt just edging out Union with 53% of the ball. This makes sense based on what I watched; Union didn’t have the ball nearly as often as I would like, but when they did, they made the most of it and had more real chances on goal than Ingolstadt did. And this appears to be a trend, looking back across the rest of their matches this season:

2-0 win over Holstein Kiel: 43% possession
1-1 draw with Arminia Bielefeld: 45% possession
2-2 draw with Duisburg: 52% possession
0-0 draw with Sandhausen: 43% possession
4-1 win over St. Pauli: 49% possession
1-1 draw with Köln: 35% possession
1-0 win over Aue: 50% possession

Two games stand out as outliers. The first is the 1-1 draw with Köln, which is the only game in which Union truly ceded possession to their opposition; that it was against top-of-the-table Köln shouldn’t be a surprise. What is a surprise is that despite Köln essentially dominating possession, Union still eked out a 1-1 draw, making the most of their single best chance all game to ensure that they brought a point back to Berlin.

The second outlier is the one game in which Union had more than 50% possession: the disappointing 2-2 draw with Duisburg. Of the four draws Union have earned so far, the Duisburg game was by far the most disappointing considering that Duisburg at that time had not yet scored a goal all season and then briefly actually led Union 2-1. So, despite having the majority of possession against a team in the bowels of a bad run of form, it’s easy to say that this was Union’s worst result of the season so far.

Urs Fischer has constructed a team that is happy to allow the other side to exhaust themselves running around with the ball. They then seize upon moments of weakness and error to steal the ball and score, frequently on the counter-attack. They’re not allowing other teams to dominate possession, but they’re not worried about not having the ball all of the time either -- instead, they’re just being brutally efficient when they do have it. Has it been the prettiest football to watch all season? Not really. But it has been effective, much more effective than Union have been in recent memory.

In this particular match, Union went ahead shortly before halftime -- as has become a habit with them. A foul by Dario Lezcano on Florian Hübner earned Union a penalty that was coolly taken by Andersson. Akaki Gogia continued his excellent run of form by adding another in the 73rd minute. Union appeared to be flying high 2-0 away from home, though one wouldn’t even know it was an away game seeing as the only audible support on the broadcast was the sizeable Union away contingent; of the mere 7,068 in attendance at Ingolstadt on Monday evening, approximately 500 were Union Berlin fans.

Then Christopher Trimmel tripped Röcher on the edge of the box and Ingolstadt were awarded their own penalty, which Kutschke put past Gikiewicz clean as you like. Now the scoreline was 2-1 with about ten minutes left to play. This was the exact kind of game that Union blew so many times last season, and indeed, the remainder of the game was nervy at times, but in the end, Union once again proved how much mental strength they managed to acquire in the offseason by holding on to the three points.

Despite the moderately uncomfortable end, this is the kind of win that should further boost Union’s confidence going forward. Coming up is another home match, this time against 12th place Heidenheim. Based on current trends, Union will probably have about 45% possession but still win 2-0. But, as we all know, almost anything can happen in 2. Bundesliga.