Union Hammer Mainz 4-1

1. FC Union came out comprehensive winners in their first Bundesliga match of the 2023/24 season, beating 1. FSV Mainz 4-1. Kevin Behrens scored a hat-trick of headers, and Frederik Rönnow saved two penalties. Milos Pantovic sealed things with the fourth.

1. FC Union Berlin: Rönnow – Trimmel, Doehki, Knoche, Leite, Roussillon (66. Gosens) – Laïdouni (89. Kemlein) , Král, Aaronson (76. Pantovic) – Fofana (66. Becker), Behrens (89. Volland)

1. FSV Mainz 05: Zentner – Bell, Kohr (60. Van den Berg), Fernandes – da Costa (81. Weiper), Barreiro, Stach (81. Krauß), Caci – Onisivo (60. Gruda), Lee (75. Barkok) – Ajorque

Attendance: 22,012 (sold out)

Goals: 1:0 Behrens (1.), 2:0 Behrens (9.), 2:1 Caci (64.), 3:1 Behrens (70.), 4:1 Pantovic (90.+6)

The hope and the expectations

With 13 minutes to play, Christopher Trimmel stood over a free kick, some twenty yards out from the Mainz goal, a bit to the left. The Mainz defender Sepp Van Den Berg wrapped his arms around Kevin Behrens, he held him, he dragged him, it was all he could do to hold him, and would be one of the defining images of a game where the irrepressible Union striker scored a glorious headed hat-trick. Well, that and the sight of Frederik Rönnow saving his second penalty of the day, diving to his right.

After the final whistle the striker said how happy he was, but “this is what I’ve worked for…” He then smiled and shook his head. “It can happily carry on like this.”

He was unplayable. But few – at least outside this small corner of the world – expected quite how, for it’s a sign of how things have changed around 1. FC Union Berlin.

Twenty years ago, they travelled to play 1. FSV Mainz on the first day of the season. Optimism was high back then, for there’s nothing as pure as the feeling before kick off with everyone level, with all to play for, with the endless possibilities of the season ahead still tangible, at least before the inevitable kick in the guts comes.

But they lost 2-1 that day, Union’s single goal scored by Steffen Baumgart, now more famous for his career as a head coach and occasional TikTok celebrity than becoming Union’s player of the season, and the club would end up miserable and second bottom of the table. They slumped drunkenly into the Regionalliga, with only 33 points.

Union were still there two years later when Sebastian Bönig made his debut for the club. Today he took his customary bag of footballs out for the pre-match warm-ups for the 501^st time as co-coach. As everything else has changed, he remains a constant. His presentation before kick off brought the house down.

Urs Fischer too was honoured, a shiny gold trophy for last season’s trainer of the year freshly pressed into his hands, but he would shake his head at all this, of course. His optimism stretches only as far as the next game. His goal for the year ahead remains set at a sober 40 points. Security comes first. He leaves all that for the fans.

And look forward they did, to seeing their established heroes – Christopher Trimmel was starting his tenth season in an Union shirt, David Datro Fofana and five others, their first. The forest was full two hours before the gates even opened, people greeted old friends after the longest of summers.

And a huge choreo filled the Waldseite, of four great treasure chests, coins and diamonds filling the great backdrop of red and white; the key from the badge of Köpenick, massive in the centre. “The key to our success…” it read across the top of the stand, “Is never forgetting where we come from.”

The performances of Behrens and Rönnow couldn’t have been summed up any better.

The old and the new

Some things were always going to be just so. Fischer started Rönnow behind Jerome Rousillon, Diogo Leite, Robin Knoche, Danilho Doekhi and Christopher Trimmel. Anchoring the midfield, in place of the injured vice-skipper, Rani Khedira, came the first of the new players, Alex Kral, behind Aissa Laidouni and another in the fleet-footed Brenden Aaronson, while up front Behrens was accompanied by the exciting Fofana. Fischer’s experiment with three up top had been cast off to the shadows for the time being, Sheraldo Becker having to sit out the start on the bench next to the two new players who have made the biggest waves over the last week, German internationals Robin Gosens and Kevin Volland.

Union get off to the quickest of starts; Behrens scores two

There was no time to breathe, to stop and take it all in. Practically from kick off Aaronson picked the ball up on the left. He took a step inside, before backheeling the ball to an overlapping Rousillon, bursting down the wing past him. Rousillon crossed, pinpoint, perfectly, to Behrens who headed home from inside the box to make it 1-0, and barely a minute had been played. It was a devastating move. Quick, clever, and pretty as a picture; the big centre-forward hanging in the air like it was an image from the fifties, the ball powering unerringly into the net off his forehead, sweat spraying, greased hair flying.

But this was nothing. Eight minutes later Laidouni had the ball on the inside right this time, crossing into the box where Behrens was there to make it two with another header. Union were devastating, the fans couldn’t believe their eyes, and Mainz were caught like a rabbit in their headlights. Danny DaCosta sent a cross sailing way past the heads of even his biggest team-mates, they could barely lay boot on the ball.

Behrens was leaving a mark everywhere he went, including one on Stefan Bell, the Mainz centre-back, for which he got a yellow card only a moment later. Their battle was compelling, Behrens with the bit between his teeth, Bell hanging on for dear life. The Mainz defender was whistled without mercy for the rest of the game, the crowd certain he’d made a meal of it. But he left one on the Union striker after 20 minutes in return.

They came together again with five minutes to go of the half, with Behrens left wincing, holding his ankle. He jogged it off as he left the pitch briefly, refusing offers of help from the physios.

Anton Stach left the dangerous Aaronson in a heap. It was brutal stuff down there in the boiling, relentless heat. Laidouni was snapping into tackles, twisting and turning, always looking for an option to keep the ball moving. Fofana ran past two helpless Mainz players from deep within his own half to deep within the opponents’. Later, he went again, and it took a superb bit of anticipation from DaCosta to stop him as he started to dance with the ball at his toe, his hips shaking. Later still it took the combined efforts of both Stach and DaCosta to stop him as he went again.

And every time Union put a ball in the box you could see the panic on the faces of the guests. Aaronson drifted one over that almost dropped under Robin Zentner’s bar. Fofana saw a shot saved by the stopper the near post after Trimmel’s clever through ball.

Behrens was brought down by Jae Sung Lee, central, just outside the D after 30 minutes. Fofana took the free kick. Off a short run up he bent it onto the bar, the keeper long beaten. The half would still see time for Leite to see a right footed drive tipped just over by a flying Zentner. He’d scored one similarly – he’s left footed, remember – last week in the cup, and he came so close to getting another.

Behrens gets his hat-trick. Rönnow makes his own double. And Pantovic rounds things off

Mainz pushed on. Karim Onisiwo flashed a header over, and Doekhi had to be careful, guiding one back to Rönnow ahead of the huge Ludovic Ajorque. But Union weren’t of a mind to sit back and admire the roses, Behrens came closer still with another header at the other end, five minutes in. Fofana was stopped just as he pulled off a glorious dragback. Then Kral was brought down on the very edge of the box as he charged through the crowd around him, but this time Fofana put the free kick over.

Then Mainz had a sniff. Ajorque went down under a Leite tackle in front of the Waldseite, his green boots lit up in the sun. The boos were deafening as he stepped up to take the penalty himself. He opted to place it, but he didn’t get enough power or precision on the shot. Rönnow guessed correctly and saved it, diving to his right.

It wasn’t the Mainz strikers’ day. But it was Rönnow’s.

With only minutes to play, Ajorque had a chance at redemption as Knoche was penalised for a handball, the decision having been sent upstairs first. This time he went the other way.

Again Rönnow chose wisely.

If Behrens would take the plaudits up top, the Dane was the hero at the other end. Later, he said it was “madness. And actually the first penalties I’ve saved in the Bundesliga.”

But both were vital, because by then Mainz had finally broken through, Anthony Caci hitting a fine volley from an angle over Rönnow and into the goal. Fischer reacted immediately, bringing on Becker and Gosens. But Mainz finally had a bit of wind in their sails, and Union their first hint of worry as Laidouni went down. He would be fine in the end, and was ultimately replaced by an Aljoscha Kemlein who was received with utter jubilation, having made his way through the junior ranks to this. He was assured on the ball, assertive in the tackle, and the Unioner adored every moment of it.

But all that was allayed when Becker carried on what Fofana had started. He ran at pace, he staggered, and tricked his way outside a defender, and chipped a gorgeous ball into the box that floated serenely onto the head of Behrens, who headed home for his hat-trick.

With only a few minutes to go Behrens then almost found Becker with a dainty little flick round the back, a work of art few outside of Köpenick had him down as being capable of only a short while ago. But that’s the thing. Sometimes the key to your success remains in keeping your feet on the floor, just as the choreo before kick off had intimated. Even if your centre-forwards are taking to the air time and time again.

As Kevin Volland, who’d also made his debut having been in the door for about five minutes following his signing from Monaco, skipped down the right and squared for Milos Pantovic to round the keeper nervelessly to make it 4-1, it merely proved that that optimism engendered by everyone here at the start, was far from misplaced.