Union Beat Hertha BSC 5-0

Union beat Hertha BSC 5-0 on Sunday afternoon in front of a sold-out crowd to secure entry into the semi-finals of the Polytan Cup. The goals were shared among the players, with Celine Frank’s opener being matched by Athanasia Moraitou, Sarah Abu Sabbah, Lisa Heiseler and a wonderful strike from Dina Orschmann.

1. FC Union Berlin: Hornschuch – Sakar, K. Orschmann, Becker, Bach (46. Reissner) – Heiseler, Frank (80. Görsdorf), Moraitou – Blaschka (65. Niesler), Abu Sabbah, D. Orschmann

Hertha BSC: Kernchen – Westphal (57. Genthe), Giannori, Dreher, Pranke – Borchmeyer, Poock (60. Burghardt), Rohde (76. Bähr), Frieauff (46. Yavuz) – Wellhausen, Reimold (74. Danso)

Goals: 1:0 Frank (31.), 2:0 D. Orschmann (56.), 3:0 Moraitou (70.), 4:0 Heiseler (72.), 5:0 Abu Sabbah (90.)

Attendance: 1500

There was a period, about halfway through a largely stodgy first half, where it would have been forgiven for wondering if all of the build-up to this cup quarter final had been a bit too much for the women of 1. FC Union Berlin. For though both they and their guests, Hertha BSC, had been waiting for three long months for ther first serious game of football, it was on Union’s shoulders that was piled the greatest of expectations.

When Dina Orschmann shoulder-barged the former Unioner, Anouk Westphal, off the ball with decisive force, it was as if she was trying to shake off the cobwebs, to get the feeling of the battle back into her belly. So much of what she does sets the tone for the rest of her team-mates, here she seemed somehow to be trying to spur herself on first.

Indeed it was Sarah Hornschuch in Union’s goal that had the first save to make, diving at the feet of the captain, Elina Frieauff, after five minutes. Elfie Wellhausen shot over not long after that. Hertha’s midfield of Frieauff and Svenja Poock snapped into challenges and succeeded in stopping Union’s movement through the middle, where Celine Frank, Athanasia Moraitou and Lisa Heiseler are usually so fluid and effective.

Maybe, or so the thought went, Union weren’t ready for grimly determined opponents such as this. Maybe the Spanish sun and their victories over the the likes of top of the 2. Liga HSV had allowed them to take their eye off the ball.

It turned out, of course, that it was the other way around, that Hertha had merely raised themselves to a superb level, one that couldn’t last. As Union’s head coach, Ailien Poese, noted after the final whistle they “closed down the spaces well so that we had few opportunities to really get in front of goal.”

All of this was, of course, largely immaterial in the end, for almost immediately following Moraitou’s long range shot that flew over the bar after half an hour, Frank volleyed home Sarah Abu Sabbah’s cross from the right, straight in at the near post.

Then Katja Orschmann went down, hurt, and Poese took the opportunity to get her players together. She spoke to Lisa Heiseler and Dina Orschmann, while, Katja’s fellow centre-back, the assured Marie Becker and Hornschuch wandered back towards their own box, having a discussion, illustrated by Becker’s hand gestures. They slapped palms, smiled quickly before the focus returned to their eyes and they went back into position.

They wouldn’t look back after that. You could see the Union players grow in stature almost straight away. Moraitou found Abu Sabbah who slipped the ball out wide to Anouk Blaschka, who almost found Dina Orschmann. It was a lovely, flowing, incisive move, and it had all started with a Becker challenge at the back, just as the one that led to Hertha keeper, Sophie Kernchen, having to rush out to dive at Abu Sabbah’s feet, had started with Katja Orschmann, and progressed through left-back, Latoya Bach, Moraitou and Heiseler.

It was with a certain amount of surprise that the sides went in at the break with only the single goal separating them. But Union’s glorious second came not long after the break, with Naika Reissner having come on for Bach on the left-hand side – and not long after Abu Sabbah hit the post, lobbing Kernchen as she came off her line, as cooly as you like.

Before her interview with AFTV last week, Bach had spoken of Dina Orschmann’s first of five goals the previous weekend away against Köln II in awed, hushed tones. The match report of it glowed, calling her leaping, stretching volley a “masterpiece”. Well, if that was a masterpiece, then this deserved a whole new kind of superlative.

She received the ball from the left wing, controlling it with a single stroke of her boot as she turned inside, towards the centre-circle, her right foot the pivot leaving her left free to become the lever. Though falling backwards all the while, in the same single, simple motion she swept a shot with enough pace to beat a stunned Kernchen, enough dip to get it under the bar with the slightest of kisses and enough brilliance to fill a thousand story books. The sold-out crowd purred in delight and Moraitou leapt into Orschmann’s arms, lifted on high as the whole team rushed into join them.

Union were now utterly dominant, reverting to a back three with the entrance of Charleen Niesler, and content for the seemingly endless wait for Heiseler to take a free kick that involved the referee, Nathalie Buse, crossing the length of the pitch to book Hertha coach, Manuel Meister and an interminable process of getting the Hertha wall back far enough.

Moraiotu would get a deserved goal when she stabbed home Dina Orschmann’s cross that had become entangled in the web of bodies in the six-yard-box, then the skipper, Heiseler got one, herself, as Abu Sabbah unselfishly opted to square the ball to her when she could have taken on the chance, herself.

Her generosity would be paid back in full as the impressive Fatma Sakar landed the ball perfectly at her feet, a couple of yards out of goal, with full time and the prospect of the semi-finals looming, and the Unioner massed in front of the grass bank that forms the main stand indulging themselves in a call and response, “Eisern,” “Union.” Keeper, Hornschuch made a point of emntioning the atmosphere afterwards, calling it “outstanding”, and it really was, as well as what must be a record attendance for the cup.

And as simply as that Union would welcome the final whistle and form their own victory circle on the pitch, a joyous, bouncing mess of players who had cast the uncertainty of the opening phases away with the finality of the hangman.

They had banished all those thoughts, and put them next to those of the Spanish sun and the giant-killings. Their focus, once again, lay clearly on the present.