Halverkamps and Orschmann Light up the Alte Försterei

1. FC Union Berlin retained their second position in the 2. Liga table with a convincing 2-0 win over SC Freiburg II on Saturday afternoon at the Alte Försterei. Antonia Halverkamps opened the scoring just past the hour before Dina Orschmann, on her 102^nd appearance for the club, bagged the second in the 93^rd minute.

1. FC Union Berlin: Bösl – Sakar, Markou, Becker, Steinert – Heiseler (80. Reissner), Frank (65. Janez), Moraitou – Halverkamps, D. Orschmann (90.+4 Blaschka), Weiss (65. Metzker)

SC Freiburg II: Adamczyk – Sadikou (46. Blöchlinger), Maas, Ezebinyuo (36. Scholle), Rößler (74. Heck) – Schmit, Günnewig, Schneider – Bianchi (64. Schick), Lorenz (64. Traore), Scherer

The starting XI:

If Ailien Poese made just the one personnel change to her side from last weekend’s goalless draw in Mönchengladbach, she made a bigger tactical shift. Cara Bösl stood in goal behind a back four of Fatma Sakar, on the right, Eleni Markou, Marie Becker and Judith Steinert, nominally taking the position, if not the place of Pia Metzker. Celine Frank anchored a midfield including Athanasia Moraitou and captain, Lisa Heiseler.

This left the attacking trident of Anna Weiß, the only one not in last week’s starting eleven, Dina Orschmann and Antonia Halverkamps up front.

Attendance: 4.220

Goals: 1:0 Halverkamps (64.), 2:0 D. Orschmann (90.+3)

Union on the front foot, but Adamczyk won’t be beaten

Presented with a special pair of boots before kick off to celebrate her 100^th appearance for Union a couple of weeks ago, Dina Orschmann was wearing gloves during the warm up as she exchanged passes with her old team-mate Celine Frank. She rarely looks unfocussed, but here she was a picture of studied concentration. She knew as much as anyone how important this game was, even with the bright lights of next Friday’s cup game against Eintracht Frankfurt on the horizon.

It wasn’t just her 102^nd game for the club. In one of those curious twists of fate that football so likes to throw up, it was a decade to the day since her Union debut. The stars had aligned, but few could predict how beautifully, how fittingly.

Orschmann, having fought tooth and nail, and seen her best efforts matched by a superb 17-year-old Rebecca Adamczyk in Freiburg’s goal all day long, would save the best til last. But all that was to come, and you could have been forgiven for thinking it wasn’t to be her day almost as soon as the game kicked off.

After Lisa Heiseler’s superbly timed tackle to stop the Nora Scherer in her tracks, Orschmann had the first sight of goal on a day in which Union would have a hatful, as she slipped onto a long ball, forcing Victoria Ezebinyuo to recover and tackle her as she entered the box, primed and ready to shoot.

Union had started on the front foot, and Eleni Markou had the next chance, her towering header tipped wide by the diving stop of Adamczyk in Freiburg’s goal.

The hosts weren’t having everything their way though, at least at first, and Freiburg were composed and patient, wary of Union’s threat on the break, while Scherer had already shown indicators of her pace on the left wing, requiring Fatma Sakar’s full attention. Marie Becker floored Leonie Lorenz from behind as they challenged a 50-50 ball in the air; Union’s lynchpin won the battle but conceded a free kick.

She strolled back to her mark at the heart of her new-look back four, exchanging a glance and a thumbs up with Judith Steinert as she went.

Nailatou Sadikou, the Freiburg right-back, left as much on Athanasia Moraitou as Becker had on Lorenz shortly after, catching her on the ankle as Union’s midfielder threatened to beat her on the outside. It was tough out there, and challenges were thundered into.

But after that initial period, Union asserted their dominance. The excellent Antonia Halverkamps having twice attacked down the right – her final ball inside missing its target by a whisker on both occasions –the third time, after Orschmann’s clever ball outside, she beat Amy Rößler for pace but hit her cross this time too close to Adamczyk as the stopper covered her near post. She would see her cross / shot drop an inch over the bar from the touchline with almost half an hour played.

On the other flank, Steinert played a lovely one-two with Frank, and won a corner from the left, but still Freiburg held firm, packing their box, fearful of Union’s excellence from the dead-ball.

Not that that deterred them from conceding more through a barrage of niggling fouls, and the game was regularly stopped, depriving Union of their rhythm, and when they got their chance, the ball just wouldn’t roll in their favour. A misplaced pass out from Adamczyk found Anna Weiß who played Orschmann in, but the keeper managed to get down to her right in time to tip the shot wide.

Then, having been played in by Frank, Orschmann was brought down in the box by Noreen Günewig as half time loomed, and she was on the turn in the box, but the Freiburg player had just taken enough of the ball to avoid a spot-kick.

They would have to kick their heels during the break, hoping that the chances spurned wouldn’t be decisive.

Halverkamps breaks through before Orschmann’s showstopper

The second half started with a crash, Mia-Leonie Maas, leaving Heiseler in a heap halfway indide the Freiburg half, a move ignored by the referee, but quickly followed by Orschmann’s cutest of backheels out to Steinert on the overlap. Maas’s next foul on Union’s talisman was easier to judge though, as she dragged her back as Orschmann turned her, 30 yards from goal. Halverkamps took the free kick, sending the ball over the wall, bending towards goal, but still an ich wide of the back post and the sprawling lunge of Adamczyk.

Union were attacking all the time now, with Heiseler far further up alongside Orschmann, and Halverkamps and Sakar switching positions on the right regularly, and it was Weiß next who saw her shot fly wide, eight minutes into the half. She was even closer a minute later when Adamczyk did superbly to rush her when she turned on the ball, ready to roll it home, somehow scrambling the ball away again to a certain safety.

Oschmann was next, playing another delicate, intricate exchange of passes with Halverkamps, but off balance, on the charge, she saw her shot fly over the bar with an hour gone. Adamczyk was brilliant, the last line in Freiburg’s defence, brave and quick-witted, and their parity was due to her regular interventions

But Union were patient, they knew if they stuck to their game then things would work out. Halverkamps and Sakar exchanged passes, as Halverkamps grew increasingly vocal, taking the lead, always looking for the ball, trying to carve out the smallest piece of space, the finest of chances.

She deserved what came next

The pressure was telling, and it was only a matter of time until Union broke the deadlock. Having seen one long distance drive crash into an unwitting defender, Halverkamps took Steiner’s pass inside and moved it with the quickest of feet onto her preferred right, and buried it past Adamczyk’s despairing dive. It was a superb finish, pinpoint in the bottom corner, and the four thousand or so Unioner on the Gegengerade erupted as the ball hit the net.

Poese already had her first changes ready as the goal was struck, and soon enough the excellent pair of Frank and Weiß were replaced by Korina Janež and Pia Metzker, like-for-like.

Union were unrelenting now, the pressure off, the memories of last weekend’s goalless draw in Mönchengladbach banished, and Halverkamps’ moment of magic sending her confidence sky-high. She crashed another shot into the back of Maas with 20 minutes to play before Adamczyk somehow got a hand to Heiseler’s close-range volley, implausibly scooping the ball away to safety again.

Moraitou was now gracing the middle of the pitch, and she played two majestic crossfield balls, one out left for Metzker, one right for Orschmann, as easily as if she was passing the salt over a kitchen table.

Union were now in compete control, and could have doubled their lead as Reissner stepped over the ball as she ran into the box, choosing to lay it off for Orschmann instead of shooting, herself. Moraitou’s shot from outside the box clipped off the trailing leg of Scherer straight after, and Reissner put her next chance straight at Adamczyk.

Adamczyk, herself deserving of a medal of some kind, kept the score down a final time as she again stopped Markou’s downwards header, this time getting down and pushing it around the post as it seemed certain to dribble over the line.

Many would have thought that this was it, but that would have been to forget Dina Orschmann, and her impeccable sense of drama on her big day.

With four minutes of time added on already payed she had a final chance, this time, finally, beating Adamczyk with a fine finish with her right foot having dribbled her way through what looked like a teeming crowd of defenders on her way in.

Beaming, her arms wide out, she drunk in the love and joy pouring down from the stands in her name.

After the final whistle she said she’d maybe been a little too quick to snap at her earlier chances, too keen to make the difference, but the happiness at her goal was written all over her face.

Few are as identified with this club as she, and few are as beloved. It was if she’d written it.