Eisern NYC

GDI Polti.  Bayer Leverkusen: Hradecky; L. Bender (Weiser), S. Bender, Dragovic, Wendell; Baumgartlinger (Demirbay); Amiri (Paulinho), Aranguiz, Volland, Havertz; Alario 1. FC Union Berlin: Gikiewicz; Trimmel, Friedrich, Schlotterbeck, Lenz (Reichel); Gentner, Andrich; Bülter, Ingvartsen (Polter), Becker (Gogia); Andersson Goals: Leverkusen: Volland (20), Alario (25) Union Berlin have not won away from Berlin in league play since they defeated Holstein Kiel 1-0 back in March. Indeed, the team managed promotion while only winning three league games total, and two of those three teams ended up relegated from the 2. Bundesliga by the end of the season. (Though we mustn’t forget that they managed to take Borussia Dortmund all the way to extra time in their cup tie at the Westfalenstadion before eventually losing 3-2 -- clearly there is something about playing Borussia Dortmund that works for Union!)  All of this is a roundabout way of saying that to expect Union Berlin...

BayArena, Leverkusen Saturday, September 21 9:30 a.m. EDT, 15:30 CEST Match Officials Referee: Robert Hartmann Assistants: Christian Dietz and Markus Schüller 4th Official: Nicolas Winter Video Assistant: Robert Kampka All-Time in All Competitions: 2 Leverkusen wins Union's League Position: 12th, 4 points, -3 GD Union's League Form:  D-D // L-D-W-L Leverkusen's League Position: 8th, 7 points, -1 GD  Leverkusen's League Form:  D-W // W-W-D-L Team News Neven Subotić will serve a one-match ban for his second yellow card sending off (the German "Gelb-Rot" is a much cleaner phrase, in my opinion) against Bremen. Grischa Prömel, still out with a knee injury, is unavailable as well. Urs Fischer also mentioned that the club will be without "three who played in the Baltic Sea Cup," which is an Under-21 tournament, where Union lost 2-1 to Halmstads. Those three were ostensibly Lennard Maloney, Julius Kade, and Maurice Opfer...

All hail our Swedish King, who now has three goals in four matches. source: Union Berlin 1. FC Union Berlin: Gikiewicz; Trimmel, Friedrich, Subotic, Lenz; Gentner (Abdullahi), Andrich; Bülter, Becker (Gogia); Andersson, Ujah (Polter) Werder Bremen: Pavlenka; Friedl, Groß, Gebre Selassie, Lang; J. Eggestein (Pizarro), Sahin, Klaassen, Osako (Sargent); Bittencourt (Goller), Füllkrug Goals: Union Berlin: Andersson (14) Werder Bremen: Klassen (5), Füllkrug (55) If you had told me before the match that Werder Bremen’s visit to the Stadion An der Alten Försterei would have been one of the most intense fixtures of the season thus far, I would have been...well, confused, mostly. Union and Werder do not share a particularly robust history, they aren’t located anywhere near each other in Germany, and they aren’t necessarily going to be rivals to avoid relegation. And yet, despite the dearth of reasons for there to be any more drama than your average Bundesliga fixture between these two t...

In the battle between my two Swiss dads, Urs Fischer bested Lucien Favre, likely because of this awesome tifo. source: Union Berlin Union Berlin: Gikiewicz; Trimmel, Friedrich, Subotic, Lenz; Becker, Schmiedebach (Gentner), Andrich, Bülter (Mees); Andersson, Ujah (Kroos) Borussia Dortmund: Bürki; Hakimi, Piszczek, Hummels, Akanji; Delaney (Dahoud), Weigl (Guerreiro); Sancho, Reus, Brandt (Bruun Larsen); Alcacer Goals: Union Berlin: Bülter (22, 50), Andersson (75) Borussia Dortmund: Alcacer (25)  Apologies for the delay, but I needed a few days to come down from the adrenaline high that was Union Berlin’s first-ever win in the Bundesliga. My memories of the game are honestly a bit fuzzy, as my ability to focus at that time was clouded by extreme emotion (not to mention a few whiskey sodas). Yet even if the precise details of the match aren’t clear to me, one thing is for certain: it was a huge statement of intent by a team that many had already written off for relegati...