What Bundesliga Boredom? Meet Germany’s Leicester — They Can Overtake Bayern Tomorrow

Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga for 10 years in a row.

In 2023, though, a sensational Bundesliga upset is brewing in Germany’s capital city. Union Berlin, with one of the lowest wage bills in the league, trails Bayern Munich by a single point.

First promoted to Germany’s top flight in 2019, Union is 2nd in the Bundesliga table. If they win against bottom-of-the-table Schalke this Sunday, the Berlin club will overtake Bayern to seize the top spot.

3 reasons why Union Berlin can become Germany’s Leicester, end Bundesliga boredom – and lift the Meisterschale trophy this May.

Oliver Ruhnert’s Moneyball Signings For Union Berlin

Two factors that dictate price tags on the European transfer market are age and performance of target players. For example, Chelsea’s recent acquisition of Argentine World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez, 22, cost the American-owned PremierPINC
League club $129 million.

Union Berlin takes a different approach. Sporting director Oliver Ruhnert seldom signs Champions League or even Europa League players; in fact, he rarely signs players younger than 23.

Instead, Ruhnert looks at talent in second-tier European leagues like Belgium, Poland or the Netherlands, on the fringe of the global footballing circus.

Nine years ago, Amsterdam-born striker Sheraldo Becker, 28, couldn’t make the jump from Ajax Amsterdam’s famed academy to their first team. So he trotted around the Dutch league for many years, playing for PEC Zwolle and ADO Den Haag.

Then, in the summer of 2019, Ruhnert brought Becker to Berlin on a free transfer. This season, the striker has scored 8 goals and provided the assist for 7 goals in 27 games. According to Transfermarkt, a soccer transfer data website, Becker now has a market value of $16 million.

Last summer, American international Jordan Siebatcheu came to Berlin from Swiss side Young Boys Bern for a $6 million fee. 6’3” tall (1.91m) and blessed with blistering pace, he lit up Union’s Stadion An der Alten Forsterei early in the season, providing 3 goals and 3 assists in his first ten Bundesliga matches.

Kevin Behrens, 32, another Union Berlin striker, has already scored three goals in the 2023 calendar year. He played in Germany’s 4th tier Regionalliga Sudwest until 2018.

Swiss Coach Urs Fischer Is Union’s Secret Sauce

During press conferences, Urs Fischer, 56, leans into his Swiss German dialect. It gives him a somewhat rural flair in an otherwise cosmopolitan league. The coach is relaxed during interviews. Just don’t ask him if Union Berlin are Bundesliga title contenders.

Despite never falling out of the top 5 clubs in the Bundesliga table in the 2022-23 season, Fischer says week in and week out that Union’s aim is to avoid relegation. (For context, 18 clubs compete in the Bundesliga and a maximum of three clubs are relegated to Bundesliga 2.)

By managing expectations in public, Fischer can manage his team in private. The coach likes to rotate his starting lineup from game to game, thereby maintaining competitiveness in training — and happiness in the dressing room.

As a result, it’s very hard for other teams to play Union. How do you do a tactical analysis of your opponent when you don’t even know which players the coach will field?

This season, Union has won against Champions League contenders Borussia Dortmund (2-0) and RB Leipzig (2-1) and tied its home game against Bayern (1-1).

FC Union’s Working-Class, East Berlin Supporters

There is one glamorous football club in Berlin. it is not Union. Crosstown rival Hertha BSC plays in Berlin’s historic Olympiastadion with a capacity of 80,000 seats. Jurgen Klinsmann and Felix Magath, two former world-class players and Bayern Munich managers, coached the West-Berlin club in the last five years.

German businessman Lars Windhorst, who made his fortune in electronics in the Nineties, pumped $ 401 million into Hertha BSC since 2019. His investment has not paid off. While Hertha is battling relegation at the tail end of the table, Union competes for the head spot.

Hertha BSC and Union Berlin are cultural opposites. Hertha is based in West Berlin, orients itself on American progressive on-pitch politics like Colin Kaepernick’s NFL protest, and strives to be a “Big City Club” as sexy and successful as Berlin itself.

Union first made its name in Communist East Germany. The club is deeply rooted in the South-Eastern Kopenick section of Berlin and has its origins in the local iron and steel industry. To this day, it maintains a distinct working-class character.

Union Berlin’s home grounds have space for just 22,000 fans, a majority of them in standing sections without seats. The Bundesliga’s smallest venue, Stadion an der Alten Forsterei – Stadium at the old forestry — borders the Wuhlheide, a Berlin forest.

The tiny stadium was renovated in the early 2000s, in part by Union fans who volunteered as amateur construction workers.

Union garnered national attention during the 2014 World Cup, when it invited the public to bring their sofas and armchairs onto the stadium field and watch the games live on big screens. (Germany won the World Cup.)

Since Union Berlin’s first ever promotion to the Bundesliga in 2019, the Hertha v Union derby has emerged as one of the top sporting rivalries in Germany. It is easy to see why.

Union Berlin hosts FC Schalke 04 this Sunday, February 19, 2023. Kick-off is at 9:30AM ET (New York), 2:30PM GMT (London) and 3:30PM CET (Berlin). ESPN+ and FuboTV are broadcasting the match.