All about the next opponent: Interview with Union Berlin fan Nadine

This evening, VfB hosts 1. FC Uni­on Ber­lin in a mid-table clash. Ahead of the Niko­laus Day matchup, we spo­ke with Uni­on fan Nadi­ne from Tex­til­ver­ge­hen.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo Nadi­ne, and thank you for taking the time to ans­wer our ques­ti­ons. Last sea­son, Union’s dra­ma­tic jour­ney ended with the hap­py ending of stay­ing in the league. Curr­ent­ly, Uni­on sits mid-table, one point behind VfB. Do you expect a cal­mer sea­son com­pared to the last?

Nadi­ne: Hi Lenn­art, thanks for having me again to talk about my club. Yes, last sea­son we once again pul­led off a last-minu­te mira­cle, this time secu­ring sur­vi­val, which was far more cri­ti­cal than pre­vious Euro­pean adven­tures. I never real­ly have expec­ta­ti­ons for Uni­on becau­se they always mana­ge to sur­pri­se me. But I sin­ce­re­ly hope for a bor­ing sea­son in the meanin­g­less midd­le of the table. That would be love­ly for a chan­ge.

Uni­on play­ed sur­pri­sin­gly in the Cham­pi­ons League last sea­son, much like VfB is doing this season—with the asso­cia­ted chal­lenges. Do you see par­al­lels bet­ween the two clubs in this regard?

After the Cham­pi­ons League reforms, I’m not sure how com­pa­ra­ble the situa­tions are. Howe­ver, VfB is a signi­fi­cant­ly lar­ger club and has more expe­ri­en­ced per­son­nel for hand­ling Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­ons. In that regard, you have clear advan­ta­ges over us.
That said, the tri­ple bur­den of the dome­stic cup, Euro­pe, and the league is enormous—for both fans and the team.

Uni­on had a strong start this sea­son but hasn’t won a match sin­ce mid-Octo­ber. Was this only due to tough oppon­ents (e.g., Bay­ern, Frank­furt, Lever­ku­sen)?

It’s been a mix. We all under­stand that bea­ting Bay­ern is unli­kely. The DFB-Pokal match against Bie­le­feld was terrible—a game most fans have pro­ba­b­ly era­sed from their memo­ries. Some­ti­mes we genui­ne­ly didn’t play well; other times, luck wasn’t on our side, like against Lever­ku­sen. We held our own in that game, even equa­li­zing after fal­ling behind. But it often breaks down at the final pass or finis­hing. On the bright side, we’re defen­si­ve­ly solid again, having con­ce­ded only 11 goals so far.

Bo Svens­son took over as Union’s coach this sum­mer. What distin­gu­is­hes him, and how do you rate his work so far?

I find him very simi­lar to Urs Fischer. He works calm­ly and metho­di­cal­ly. I think he adapt­ed quick­ly at Uni­on and fits in well here. He can do his work in peace, and he seems to app­re­cia­te that.

How does he set up the team, and whe­re do Union’s strengths and weak­ne­s­ses lie at the moment?

The team is once again focu­sed more on defen­se. We press high up the field but don’t seem to have a clear offen­si­ve strategy—or if we do, it’s not visi­ble.
The for­wards don’t get good ser­vice and can’t do much with the balls they recei­ve. That’s an area that defi­ni­te­ly needs work.

Jeong Woo-yeong joi­n­ed Uni­on on loan this sum­mer. How has he per­for­med for you?

Woo is a dyna­mic play­er who fits well into our offen­se with his speed and excels in tran­si­tio­nal play. He’s scored a goal each against Hof­fen­heim and Lever­ku­sen. He’s inte­gra­ted into the team quick­ly and star­ted seven matches. Given the fre­quent rota­ti­ons up front, that’s pret­ty good. I’d love to see him stay lon­ger with us.

Rani Khe­di­ra and Bene­dict Hol­ler­bach, who also has two goals, are two for­mer VfB play­ers at Uni­on. What’s their sta­tus?

Rani remains vice-cap­tain and is a cor­ner­stone for us. He con­ti­nues to play a phy­si­cal style that always has him tee­te­ring on the edge of a red card. When he’s fit, he’s almost always a star­ter.
Hol­le, like Woo, brings a lot of speed to the pitch. He works tire­less­ly, con­stant­ly pres­sing and annoy­ing oppon­ents with his per­sis­tent runs. He’s dar­ing, fre­quent­ly attemp­ting dribbles. While he occa­sio­nal­ly makes poor decis­i­ons, over­all, we’ve gai­ned a very good play­er in him.

In con­clu­si­on: Your pre­dic­tion for the lin­e­up and the match?

I think we’ll start the same way we did against Lever­ku­sen. Skar­ke might have to return to the bench, with Voll­and or Jor­dan coming in for him. On the right, Jura­no­vic is back from inju­ry, so he might replace Trim­mel.
I hope we can build on our per­for­mance against Lever­ku­sen and that the DFB-Pokal match is still weig­hing on your legs. Hop­eful­ly, it’ll be 1–2, and we’ll take three points back to Ber­lin.

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Maja Hitij/Getty Images