1. FC Union must change on the defensive

Urs Fischer suspected it. In retrospect, you are always smarter, said the coach of 1. FC Union when he had to name his squad for the Conference League a few weeks ago. And hindsight has now shown him to be right. If he had known at the time that he would be missing two defenders before the first home game of the group stage, he might have added a fifth central defender to his 25-man squad. And so Union goes into the game on Thursday against Maccabi Haifa (9 p.m., RTL Nitro) with a slight headache.

Timo Baumgartl, who was carried off the pitch with a severe concussion during the game against Arminia Bielefeld on Saturday, is doing well again, said Fischer at the press conference on Wednesday. Because head injuries are now treated more cautiously than before, Union will be absent from the Olympic Stadium as well as Paul Jaeckel, who has been banned from the red. This means that the defense is very thin. And at an inopportune time.

After all, the game against Haifa is the first in this competition that Union actually feels pressure. At the away start in Prague you were already an outsider against the multiple Champions League participant SK Slavia. In the play-off games against Kuopion they were so superior that progress seemed hardly threatened.

This time the situation is different. Especially after the defeat against Prague, the Berliners actually have to score points if they don’t want to lose touch in the race for the next round. Because Haifa is probably the most beatable opponent in a difficult group – and the home game against the Israeli champions is perhaps the least difficult task. “We are well advised to want to win the game, so we will approach it with a lot of intensity,” said midfielder Rani Khedira on Wednesday.

The Union fans will change the color of the Olympic Stadium from blue to red again

The fans will probably also bring intensity. As the club said on Wednesday, 22,500 of the 25,000 tickets available have already been sold, including some for the visiting fans. As they did against Kuopion, the Union supporters will try to maintain their home advantage in the bright red Olympic Stadium, even in a foreign environment. “It is a home game for us and we will try to leave the points in Berlin in order to have a chance in the final accounts. If you want to position yourself in the first two places, you need points, “said Fischer.

But he’ll have to come up with a new defensive variant for that. Union has always entered the game with a back three this season, but that will be a bit more difficult without Jaeckel and Baumgartl. According to Uefa’s “homegrown player regulation”, Union had to nominate at least four players from its own youth and at least four others who were trained in Germany. The 17-year-old Mathis Bruns made it into the squad ahead of the more experienced Rick van Drongelen. On Wednesday, Fischer remained taciturn as usual: “I still believe that we can find a good solution. We will see tomorrow which it will be. “

It is highly unlikely that Bruns, who has not yet played a single minute of the competitive game for the professional team, will play right from the start. If Fischer actually wants to stay with the three-man chain, there should be an emergency solution like Khedira or Julian Ryerson as a central defender. Perhaps he is betting on a back four with the two already set central defenders Robin Knoche and Marvin Friedrich. When Jaeckel flew off the pitch in Prague shortly before the break, the Union coach preferred this variant. And up to the crucial last few minutes, the plan worked perfectly.

At the weekend, Fischer said, especially with a view to the 1: 3 in the Czech capital, that although his team had recently suffered some “unfortunate defeats”, they are now confident again after the win against Bielefeld. Even on the defensive, despite the staff worries, there are signs that the coordination problems in the first few weeks of the season are slowly being ironed out. And the defense is at home anyway. Whether at the Alte Försterei or in the Olympic Stadium: Union has only conceded two goals in its five home games this season.