Freiburg, Union and Cologne in the fast lane
SC Freiburg, Union Berlin and 1. FC Köln make their fans happy and are now fighting closely for places in the Europa League or even the premier class
It’s one of the natural peculiarities of team sport: if some teams perform better and therefore climb higher in the table than they were previously given credit for, there are others who get stuck. Currently doing more than expected: SC Freiburg, Union Berlin, 1. FC Köln in fifth, sixth and seventh place. One of the most conspicuous underperformers this Bundesliga season is (along with Wolfsburg and Hertha BSC) Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Even when Lars Stindl equalized 3-3 in injury time in Freiburg, the obvious majority of the fans who traveled with them refused to celebrate. Stindl, with suppressed joy, ran straight to a poster with this unflattering inscription: “No fight, no will, no character – you are a disgrace to the city and the club!”
In Freiburg, at Union and in Cologne, on the other hand, the glue between the club and the fans could not be stronger than in spring 2022. The performance of these three teams and their coach cannot be overestimated.
Union Berlin: A special resilience to deal with painful setbacks revealed the Köpenicker not only on Saturday in Leipzig. At the same place where the Irons had so unluckily missed the DFB Cup final three days earlier in injury time, they were now 1-0 down in the Bundesliga game up to the 86th minute. Surprisingly, the manager had previously denied her a penalty despite the use of video evidence after Nordi Mukiele had hit Niko Gießelmann in the knee with the stud. But Union stayed tuned, and how: Joker Sven Michel scored with a diving header just 21 seconds after being substituted on. The same Michel soon awaited Kevin Behrens, who came on with him, with a hoe, which was well worth seeing, to score the much-celebrated 2-1 winner.
Union overcame the adversities of the winter with amazing stability after defense chief Marvin Friedrich (to Mönchengladbach) and Max Kruse (to Wolfsburg) were poached one after the other. There was a phase lasting several weeks, the results of which are of little consolation. Then they shook Urs Fischer’s team and just kept scoring, most recently with four Bundesliga wins in a row against Cologne, Hertha, Frankfurt and Leipzig. Super-Joker Michel speaks of an “incomprehensible mentality”.
The Union fans celebrated a little more exuberantly than usual, after all, they have a heartfelt dislike for RB Leipzig. It should also be mentioned at this point that Union only offered a fourth-rate performance in the third-rate Conference League this season and were ingloriously eliminated in the preliminary round.
1. FC Cologne: In the emotionalized Geißbock-Klub, coach Steffen Baumgart, who is highly praised for good reasons, can be heard repeating in an endless loop that of course they want to go to Europe, but that it would be a great season even if they didn’t make it. The man who looks like a delivery man in his flat cap, white short-sleeved shirt and black vest with the supermarket sponsor printed on the back is absolutely right. It’s part of his job not to curb expectations in the starving city of successes over many years, but also to demand a realistic view of things. Because not to forget: As a relegation participant in the largely unsuccessful previous season, FC was one of the designated relegation candidates on many tips before the start of the current season. Baumgart now says after the arduous 3-1 win over Arminia Bielefeld: “None of the boys has recently played for Europe. I just don’t see that they are light-footed.” The pressure!
Sc freiburg: After the 3:3 against Mönchengladbach, the anger at having lost two points after the 3:2 lead got worse than the joy at having caught up from a 0:2 deficit. “The boys are extremely disappointed,” reported Christian Streich from the dressing room. The coach spoke of an “incredibly great game” in which he still wanted to see the adrenaline leftovers from the successful cup semi-final on Tuesday in Hamburg. Streich gave people well-intentioned, but not quite thought-through advice: “I would buy a season ticket for next year.” There aren’t any more at SC Freiburg. All 25,000 have long since been sold, and the waiting list is long because the new arena at this location also reliably offers higher football costs.
Now the high-flyers Union, Cologne and Freiburg are fighting for a place in the Europa League. For the Breisgauer, the last day of the game at Bayer Leverkusen could even become the final for qualifying for the Champions League. Overtaking allowed!
![The wondrous journey continues: Sven Michel (left) and Taiwo Awoniyi celebrate after Michel's 1-1 draw in Leipzig.](https://www.fr.de/bilder/2022/04/24/91498060/28719687-die-wundersame-reise-geht-weiter-sven-michel-li-und-taiwo-awoniyi-jubeln-nach-dem-durch-michel-in-leipzig-25fe.jpg)