Union’s Women are Promoted to the 2. Liga

1. FC Union Berlin’s women’s team completed the most incredible of seasons, with a 2-0 away win over SV Henstedt-Ulzburg in the second leg of their promotion play-off. That made it 10-0 on aggregate, and they have written history, securing promotion with a 100% record. Never had it been done before. Their achievement will be talked about for years to come.

1. FC Union Berlin: Wagner – K. Orschmann (65. Schindler), Niesler, Frank – Sakar (65. Reissner), Blaschka, Moraitou (65. Scheel), Heiseler (65. Görsdorf), Metzker (75. Bach) – Abu Sabbah, D. Orschmann

SV Henstedt-Ulzburg: Jungblut – Behneke (88. Kossy), Fuß, Pawelec, Michel – Nagorny, Hegeler, Kern (72. Hagedorn) – Steinhart (72. Johansen), Homp (81. Advani), Hille (88. Ragouena)

The Starting XI

Ailien Poese started the same eleven who started last week’s historic encounter in the Alte Försterei with Mel Wagner in goal behind a back three anchored by Charleen Niesler, with Katja Orschmann and Celine Frank either side, flanked by Fatma Sakar and Pia Metzker as wing-backs, right and left, respectively. Athanasia Moraitou and Lisa Heiseler made up the midfield with Anouk Blaschka, allowing Dina Orschmann to partner Sarah Abu Sabbah up front

Goals: 0:1 D. Orschmann (19.), 0:2 Orschmann (37.)

Attendance: 700

Dina Orschmann strikes twice, Union draw ever closer to their goal

Never before had a team gone a whole Regionalliga season winning every game. But on the final whistle of a superbly fought game – that did both sides great credit, where neither had anything to lose – the astonishing women’s team of 1. FC Union Berlin had done that and more. They had mastered the final hurdle, the play-off with a 10-0 aggregate victory. Their celebrations on the pitch at the final whistle were uproarious, and no less than utterly deserved. They will go on long into the night.

There were several hundred Union fans, having travelled the couple of hundred miles on a Sunday to Schleswig-Holstein, and they packed the shallow concrete terrace flanking the home straight of the Beckersberg Stadion. If the tension of the tie had been removed somewhat by Union’s 8-0 win last weekend, excitement was still high. They sung and they cheered; it was a sea of red and white and had all the prospects of becoming one of those famous trips in the club’s history, one of those moments that everyone talks about.

“Were you there when…?”

It was certainly one the players won’t forget, and Union started sharply, full of confidence, but their hosts were similarly determined to how they began the first leg and were clearly keen to avoid a repeat result. Double strikers, Milla Steinhart and Michelle Hille, pushed up, desperate not to get drawn back into their own half. They were brave and determined throughout.

But Lisa Heiseler, already buzzing around the tip of midfield, using the space provided her by the withdrawn positions Blaschka was taking, got the first shot off on target, zipping the ball low off the turf, soaking due to the heavy shower that greeted kick off. She got her second a moment later, parried by Anneke Klaas in Henstedt-Ulzburg’s goal, but it went only as far as Abu Sabbah, who bent a shot onto the bar. She held her head in her hands in disbelief, having picked her spot perfectly.

Union’s top scorer would hold a similar pose with half time looming, when she shot just over, this time following Blaschka’s impudent backheel that set her up. It wasn’t to be her day. At least in front of goal.

Katja Orschmann then sliced one over the bar following Blaschka’s corner – won herself – after ten minutes, as Union controlled the ball, moving it across the pitch with a smoothness, all too common to everyone who has played them this incredible season long.

Klaas had to be out smartly to stop Dina Orschmann in her tracks, before Lisa-Kristin Behneke made another smart lunge to stop the elder Orschmann twin as she prepared to shoot from inside the box.

Orschmann, though, wasn’t to be thwarted for long, and she opened the scoring with a volley on the turn after 19 minutes, from near the edge of the box. It was, as the fans sung, typically elegant, and proved a neat summation of her first full season back at Union.

Union pushed on for a second. Blaschka struck one just over the bar from distance before the guests conjured the best move of the match so far, a brilliant, sweeping move that started with the indefatigable Moraitou, passed through Heiseler out right to Sakar, whose clever ball across the box somehow evaded everyone.

Similarly puzzling, was how Abu Sabbah’s shot took the slightest deflection, taking just enough of the pace off the ball so that Klaas could get back in time before it trundled over the line.

But Dina Orschmann would make it two nil with 37 minutes played, this time hitting Sakar’s cross first time with her right foot, across Klaas, and inside the back post. The keeper threw herself at it, but she never stood a chance.

Moraitou was up and down, everywhere. At one moment she was chasing back to clear up ahead of the onrushing Jennifer Michel, the next powering forwards up the middle; or clipping her free kick into the wall, as she did after half an hour. Her thirty-yard ball out left that landed an inch in front of Pia Metzker’s toe was a thing of beauty, it soared, cross field, as if plotted on a flight map.

The players jogged off for half time, light on their toes, as if they hadn’t played out such a long season at all. They were so close.

No further goals, but the party begins

As always, the Union players were out first, getting into their huddle as the music still played, the sun now streaming down on the long grass of the pitch. You could see how relaxed they were. Dina Orschmann turned to Pia Metzker as they waited for the whistle on the halfway line. She said something. They laughed. And within seconds she bent a shot just inches over the bar from distance with next to no back lift, clipping the ball with the greatest of ease.

But the hosts would counter quickly, refusing to lay down, as Vera Homp, who played when the sides met back in the 2. Liga seven years ago, found Hille with a fine switched, long pass, though Wagner was equal to the striker’s shot. When Homp next got the ball, Frank was quickly across to sniff out the danger as she approached the halfway line.

No-one could question the hosts pride. Next it took a robust tackle from Niesler to stop Homp, leaving her in a heap while coming away with the ball. Liv Fuß hit a well struck free kick from range that flew just over Wagner’s goal after Heiseler caught Homp. The Union skipper reacted strongly, certain she’d won the ball fairly, but the referee was having none of it.

Despite the result never coming into question, nobody gave an inch.

At the other end, Klaas made another good stop to deny Dina Orschmann’s hat-trick, diving to her left and holding the stabbed shot, before it took another fine tackle from Michel to deny her with an hour played. Fifteen minutes later, again, Klaas stopped Dina Orschmann, this time with her legs, after Niesler’s lovely, lofted ball up the middle.

Poese took off Heiseler, Moraitou and Sakar not long after the break, bringing the curtain down on the trio’s season, replacing them with Lisa Görsdorf, Naika Reissner and Luca Scheel. Soon after, Elisa Schindler joined them on the pitch, coming on for Katja Orschmann.

Reissner was immediately involved, when she artfully chased down a long ball played towards the corner flag, controlling the ball on the slide, before squaring it to Abu Sabbah in the box. For once Abu Sabbah’s scoring boots had deserted her though. She had scored 45 goals in the league and the play-offs this season. She would be forgiven.

Wagner was again called into play, saving Anna Johannsen’s flicked header – the stopper getting down well to her right – as Henstedt-Ulzburg still kept striving towards Union’s goal. She had been so important all season, her presence a reassuring one, her concentration never wavering, even during those long periods when she would barely see the ball for games in a row.

But it was to no single player that accolades would go, and at the final whistle the beer showers, sprayed with unalloyed jubilation were shared amongst the whole squad and the entire trainer team. They bounced and they danced all over the pitch, a rainstorm of foam, a torrent of joy.

The teams of the 2. Liga will be looking over their shoulders. Union had made history.