Despite a superb, battling performance, 1. FC Union Berlin lost 3-2 to Real Madrid in the final match of their historic first ever Champions League campaign. They had taken the lead through Kevin Volland’s goal at the end of the first half before being pegged back to 2-1. The valiant hosts drew level through Alex Kral’s equaliser, but their hearts would be broken as Dani Ceballos scored the winner with a minute to go.
1. FC Union Berlin: Rönnow – Juranović (82. Trimmel), Jaeckel (75. Becker), Knoche, Leite, Roussillon – Haberer, Khedira (75. Král), Gosens (75. Laïdouni) – Volland (82. Aaronson), Behrens
Real Madrid: Kepa – Lucas Vázquez, Nacho, Alaba (71. Rüdiger), Fran García – Ceballos (90. Paz), Valverde (46. Kroos), Modrić – Bellingham – Rodrygo (80. Brahim Díaz), Joselu
Attendance: 73.420
Goals: 1-0 Volland (45.+2), 1-1 Joselu (61.), 1-2 Joselu (72.), 2-2 Král (85.), 2-3 Ceballos (89.)
The team
In his press conference on Monday evening, Nenad Bjelica was keen to point out that he wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about Union’s exalted guests, the 14 times champions of Europe, for whom the goalscorer that last time the sides met, Jude Bellingham, and all the others with diamonds on the soles of their boots in a strong starting eleven – would play. For, he said, it didn’t matter who they were. And he had enough belief in his own team.
Yet he still had a surprise up his sleeve, reverting to a back three of Diogo Leite, Robin Knoche and Paul Jaeckel, with Jerome Roussillon and Josip Juranovic as the flying – or deep sitting, depending on who had the ball – full-backs.
Following their superb performance at the weekend against Mönchengladbach, Rani Khedira and Janik Haberer were anchoring the midfield with Robin Gosens, Kevin Volland, and Kevin Behrens, making his hundredth appearance in the red of Union, led the line
And who’d have thought when he signed from Sandhausen all that time ago, where their story together would lead. Indeed, as the teams lined up, in the final group stage of a champions league group, still with much to play for, many still didn’t.
Rönnow saves Modric’s penalty. Volland opens the scoring for Union
A historic night for 1. FC Union Berlin started with a wonderful chance, as it ended with ultimate heartbreak, the stadium barely having had a chance to settle following the anthem. Jude Bellingham and David Alaba stroked the ball about, but suddenly there was a moment of confusion at the back. Volland headed across goal where Khedira laid it off beautifully for Behrens to volley. Kepa, however, just tipped his shot over the bar.
Real were flustered but their class on the ball told, as it took Knoche to steal the ball off Rodrygo, the ball at his toe. Union, however, wouldn’t let them rest, the superb, tireless Roussillon chasing the length of the pitch; Khedira blocking off Dani Ceballos in the middle.
Union would allow the pace to drop though, they had to. Real passed the ball about, ever watchful, such as when Roussillon did brilliantly to stave off an attack through Ceballos on the right, or when Rönnow saved from Valverde after ten minutes. Bellingham then stabbed wide a couple of minutes later following Joselu’s ball in from the right.
Haberer, however, was getting on the ball more in the middle, joined by Gosens, making a three with Khedira, using that as a base from which to counter. Sometimes though they were skipped over entirely, as when Union broke through Juranovic, when Volland did superbly to beat Lucas Vazquez to the highest of balls out from Leite.
The busy Joselu, Union’s main tormentor, clipped the bar with a header following Fran’s cross, leaving Rönnow looking on agape, but shortly after the hosts would have their best move of the match so far, a slow build from Rönnow at the very back, and a succession of short passes played with the patience of saints, going via Khedira and Gosens, ending ultimately with a shot by Behrens straight at Kepa.
Bellingham shot inches wide from a short and sharp free kick routine, 25 yards out, bending the ball with his right past Rönnow’s left hand post as Real pushed up more and more, and the game started to resemble nothing so much as a colder version of the first encounter in Madrid. Though, somehow, this one would hurt all the more in the end.
Haberer turned Fran inside out in his own box, Modric dropped his shoulder to send Khedira off in the wrong direction in return.
Roussillon, meanwhile, was majestic, as he has been ever since his recall to the starting eleven. He robbed Modric in the middle, before cutting inside and being brough down by Nacho after 35 minutes. The Unioner roared in unconstrained rage as play went on with him still down on the ground in agony.
Bellingham flickered, Modric bristled, and Joselu flicked wide with the outside of his boot with three minutes to play when he should have done better; while Knoche stepped up and almost found Behrens with a killer through ball. Kevin Volland chased and chased and chased, he knew that he would find a gap in Real’s defence at some point, he just had to prise it open.
Then, catastrophe. Modric crossed from the right, the ball striking Leite’s hand in the box as he turned his back in the air. The referee, Rade Obrenovic, however, took no time pointing to the spot, and few argued against it too much. But Roussillon was happy to make a nuisance of himself, making Modric take all the time in the world before stepping up to take the spot-kick.
You could feel the pensiveness in the stadium, but few had reckoned on Rönnow, when they should have remembered the first game of the season when he stopped two of these. Modric drove down the middle, and though the Danish stopper dived to his right, he saved with his feet.
The stadium erupted, but that was nothing to what would soon come, because within what seemed like the blink of an eye Volland was chasing down a sliced clearance from David Alaba, Kepa, suddenly panicked. He knew what was coming before it had happened, as did the striker. He’d scored two in two before this, and now he made it three in three as he stabbed home with practically the last kick of the half.
Real come back, Kral equalises, before Ceballos breaks Union’s hearts
Union came out for the second half brimming with confidence; Gosens flicking Haberer’s cross just wide after only a couple of minutes and Behrens straying just offside a minute after that. But they knew it would be a long half, and their forays would be few and far between. Union prepared to bed in.
Rönnow saved well from Lucas Vazquez’s volley, and Leite got in front of Fran’s drive. Roussillon threw himself of Dani Ceballos’s cross, but it took the head of the substitute, Toni Kroos, to stop Volland’s quick and clever ball that was suddenly threatening to set Behrens away. David Alaba then drew a yellow, bringing down Haberer inside the centre circle.
Rönnow was devastating. He made an astonishing save from Rodrygo, his hand jutting out at his hip to stop a certain goal-bound header following Bellingham’s delicious ball. But Union countered again, Kepa just robbing Volland on the very edge of his box. Then Rönnow took the sting out of another drive from outside the box by Rodrygo with ten minutes played.
Real were piling on the pressure. Rodrygo made the next of a series of deadly runs down the right, his hips shaking, daring his man to rush into a challenge. He clipped the ball across where Joselu planted the simplest of headers past Rönnow to make it 1-1.
Union needed another goal, but they had to get the ball first, they were playing a game of patience, taking their time, or having it taken from them. Real pinged it about, Modric shot wide, Alaba hooked one over, falling back, from a corner.
Then they scored again, and this time it seemed final. Joselu made a clever run inside the box, dipping to head the ball past Rönnow to make it 2-1 with just under 20 minutes to play.
Bjelica reacted, bringing on Aissa Laidouni, Alex Kral and Sheraldo Becker, making his first appearance under the new gaffer following his injury, for Khedira, Gosens and Jaeckel. He was throwing everything he had at them, and his side stepped up again, despite knowing the scale of the task they faced.
For Modric and Bellingham showed the Union coach just what they were up against, flicking the ball between themselves, under and over, over and under with absolute, calm. The old master and his apprentice.
But Becker got down the left, then Volland sprang Laidouni free, the Tunisian international clipping his shot over the bar. Then came Brenden Aaronson and Christopher Trimmel and Union had another bit more of a spring in their step, another bit more belief.
It culminated with Alex Kral hitting a wonderful drive from the edge of the box, giving Kepa no chance at all. Union were back in it. They knew that Braga were losing in Naples, and they just needed a single goal to achieve the impossible.
But their joy was short lived. Ceballos found space to the right of the D, shooting with his right, the ball taking the slightest deflection, but enough to leave poor Rönnow flat-footed.
Bjelica shone with pride at his side’s performance, if they seen their ambitions of a European winter fall at the last. “We were alive until the last minute, but when you have to press for the third goal at 2-2, Real Madrid are too good not to capitalise on it.”
Union fought on, and the stadium shook with pride at their performance as the clock wound down and the inevitable final whistle on this historic campaign came.
