Union Beat Fortuna Dresden 8-0

1. FC Union Berlin beat 1. FFC Fortuna Dresden 8-0 in their first match of the second half of the Regionalliga Nordost season. A quickfire second half Zita Rurack hattrick added to goals from Lisa Heiseler, Dina Orschmann, Anouk Blaschka and a volley on the turn from Sarah Abu Sabbah.

1. FFC Fortuna Dresden: Ewert (80. Löwe) – Winkler, Hesse (46. Menberg), Wagner, Uhlmann – Schleif, Zeidler, Simon – Freude, Zenker (74. Strecker), Martin (81. Hänichen)

1. FC Union Berlin: Wagner – Sakar, Niesler, Becker (77. Schulz), Bach – Frank (60. Görsdorf), Heiseler, Moraitou – Blaschka, Abu Sabbah (60. Rurack), D. Orschmann

Goals: 0-1 D. Orschmann (14.), 0-2 Heiseler (25.), 0-3 Hesse (44., Eigentor), 0-4 Abu Sabbah (46.), 0-5 Blaschka (66.), 0-6 Rurack (73.), 0-7 Rurack (81.), 0-8 Rurack (85.)

Attendance: 145

Three months it had been since Union beat Bischofswerdaer 5-0 in the snow in the Regionalliga Nordost. Almost half the length of the season itself they had waited, but there’s only so many friendlies you can play. And as the Union players came out onto a Wurzeler Strasse Stadion pitch whose patchy grass was as unkempt as a stray dog’s mange, you could see they finally meant business. Just as the face of Sarah Abu Sabbah betrayed her will to stay on the pitch an hour and something later. She had scored one here – as fine a goal as you’ll see – but it wasn’t enough.

Ailien Poese won’t have minded much. For her side started from where they left off back in the winter, and Abu Sabbah’s first touch was a gorgeous step-over that almost slipped Dina Orschmann through in on goal after just a couple of minutes. Union’s superiority was barely called into doubt, all day long (though here it is worth pointing out the disparity in resources the sides share, this was not so much a battle of David against Goliath, as David against Goliath and Goliath and Goliath).

At the heart of a back four, in the absence of Katja Orschmann, Marie Becker was pushing up well into the opposition’s half almost from the get-go, her partner Charleen Niesler happy to sweep up behind, her flying full-backs, Latoya Bach and Fatma Sakar providing width, strength and stability.

Indeed, it was somewhat of a surprise that it took as long as a quarter of an hour before Union opened the scoring. Celine Frank drove a shot into the box that looped up into the sky. Abu Sabbah was there first, adding more air to the ball before it dropped perfectly for Union’s talisman, Orschmann to lift it over the keeper, Chantal Löwe, with the greatest of ease.

They were hitting their stride; a lovely flowing move from Athanasia Moraitou, via Orschmann saw Abu Sabbah roll the ball just past the back post, just as she chastised herself for straying offside after her’s and Orschmann’s one-two had carved the Dresden defence open. But they’d improve on that. After half an hour, Moraitou rolled the ball around the corner with the inside of her heel, out to Bach. She cut in from the right, into the middle of the pitch, riding a tackle before hitting a precise crossfield ball to Anouk Blaschka on the right. This time Löwe did well to hold the cross, especially as a wicked, chilled wind was at the backs of the guests.

Lisa Heiseler, who ended the Hinrunde with a hat-trick, wasn’t going to be left out, and as soon as the ball fell to her as she loitered in the six-yard box there was only going to be one outcome. She hit her volley so hard, though it was in the general direction of Löwe, she barely stood a chance.

It seemed harsh that the skipper wasn’t given her second on the stroke of half time as her drive into the box took a horrible deflection of the helpless Marlena Hesse, wrongfooting Löwe, and sending Union 3-0 up into the break.

If Union had simply taken their form from pre-Christmas into the game, then the same could be said for the way they transitioned from the first ahfl to the second. With barely a minute played Latoya Bach hit a high, pinpoint cross with her left – the fullback has swapped sides seamlessly since the arrival of Sakar and has worked relentlessly on her wrong foot – that Abu Sabbah took on the chest with her back to goal. She pivoted, hitting it first time, waist height. It was brilliant finish, clinical and powerful.

Union were irrepressible, but they couldn’t make their chances count. Orschmann batted Francine Schleif off the ball like a rag doll, but she put wide when you’d put the house on her scoring. And it was her team-mate, and fellow striker, Anouk Blaschka who bagged the fifth, shooting across goal from Orschmann’s cross. She hit a better one to Blashka shortly afterwards, this one backheeled in the direction of Moraitou, but despite being unceremoniously lumped in the box, the referee ignored her teammates pleas for a penalty.

The final minutes would, however, belong to neither of them, nor to the substituted Abu Sabbah, but to Zita Rurack, who scored a 12 minute hattrick after coming on.

The first was an instinctive finish; the second a stroke of fortune as she shot from 25 yards at Fortuna’s reserve keeper, having been on the pitch for all of 20 seconds, who flapped at the ball but couldn’t affect its movement (this was bitterly unlucky, and had she a sighter first, a simple chance to touch the ball, she’d have likely parried it, despite the venom in the shot); her third was a stabbed effort from inside the six-yard box, as simple as you like.

Rurack was full of praise for her team-mates after the final whistle, praising the way they had laid her chances on, but humility is just another facet of what makes this team what it is. They were back in business.

Union Beat Fortuna Dresden 8-0
Zita Rurack Hat-Trick Rounds off the Perfect Day