The red and white football fairy tale of Union Berlin continues: The Irons expand their lead in the Bundesliga and exacerbate the crisis at VfB Stuttgart. The surprise team of the season goes into the top duel with Borussia Dortmund with a two-point lead over pursuers SC Freiburg.
1. FC Union Berlin has dropped to the top of the table in the Bundesliga and the crisis at VfB Stuttgart has worsened. The unbelievable Köpenicker won 1-0 (0-0) against the Swabians at the end of the 9th matchday. Paul Jaeckel (76th minute) scored the decisive goal in front of 43,250 spectators for the Berliners, who are now two points ahead of second-placed SC Freiburg and four points ahead of champions FC Bayern Munich. Stuttgart's Serhou Guirassy received a yellow card after a foul in the 83rd minute.
"It was a lucky win for us. We wanted to act from a good compactness and then somehow score the goal. We succeeded," said Unions Rani Khedira on DAZN: "We didn't see a nice game, we noticed our tiredness ." The traveling fans didn't care at all. They sang euphorically: "German champion is only the FCU!" Crazy football world.
Meanwhile, the pressure on VfB coach Pellegrino Matarazzo is increasing. Stuttgart are penultimate and the only team in the Bundesliga without a win. Next weekend they are expecting bottom-placed VfL Bochum for a basement duel. For his 100th competitive game as VfB coach, Matarazzo had demanded, among other things, better and more passionate duel behavior from his pros – and he was heard. The Stuttgart team was clearly the more active team in the first half, which was led intensively by both sides but was not very attractive. At first, however, they found it difficult to create real goal threats against the defensively strong guests.
New signing Dan-Axel Zagadou, who made his starting eleven debut in the VfB defense and pushed Pascal Stenzel onto the bench, allowed himself a careless, albeit inconsequential loss of the ball. The Frenchman had the first chance of the game after 15 minutes and forced Union keeper Frederik Rönnow to make a strong save from close range. Stuttgart's Hiroki Ito also tested the Berlin goalkeeper with a powerful free kick (25'), VfB striker Guirassy headed just wide (34').
The Köpenicker, who have conceded six goals so far and thus the fewest goals in the league, started with three fresh players compared to the 1-0 win at Malmö FF in the Europa League three days earlier. Among them was defender Jaeckel, who failed with a header from VfB goalkeeper Florian Müller shortly before the break. Otherwise, coach Urs Fischer's team mostly left the game to the hosts in the first half and watched for mistakes. Stuttgart's Waldemar Anton had to continue playing with a head bandage after a collision with Andras Schäfer.
At the beginning of the second half, the guests intensified their offensive efforts a little, but they weren't really dangerous. Instead, in the 54th minute, captain Wataru Endo missed another chance for the Stuttgart team, who wore black armbands in memory of VfB legend Jürgen Sundermann, who died during the week. Stuttgart's midfielder Atakan Karazor received his fifth yellow card of the season for a foul on Genki Haraguchi shortly afterwards and will miss the match against Bochum.
In the final phase, neither team was looking for the last risk, Jaeckel's headed goal following a corner came as a bit of a surprise - also because the corner shouldn't have been there beforehand due to an offside position. VfB tried to reply again, but a shot by Konstantinos Mavropanos landed on the post (79'). And so Union Berlin continues its unbelievable course. They run and run. And just don't stop. Next stop: old forester's house. Next opponent: Borussia Dortmund. And when? Next Sunday.
