Top in the league, a flop in the cup: Union Berlin, fourth in the Bundesliga, missed out on a place in the round of 16 after a disgraceful performance at third division club Arminia Bielefeld.
The capital city team lost 0:2 (0:1) to the third division team in the second round and in this condition they have to tremble enormously before Saturday’s guest game at Bayern Munich.
Marius Wörl (12th) and substitute Andre Becker (71st) scored the goals for Arminia, who are in the third round for the first time in eight years. The almost 840,000 euro bonus will also be good for East Westphalia.
“The team fought incredibly. It was a perfect cup evening, which is extremely good for us,” said Bielefeld’s sports director Michael Mutzel on “Sky”: “We are extremely happy about the victory.”
The 26,117 spectators in the sold-out Alm saw a game without any major highlights in the first few minutes. That changed after Berliner Andras Schäfer’s gross mistake. Wörl took advantage of the bad pass and scored with a remarkable lob over Union goalkeeper Frederik Rönnow, who was standing far in front of his goal.
Union Berlin’s final offensive fizzled out
Just four minutes later, the guests, who had five new professionals in the starting line-up compared to the previous draw in the league against Eintracht Frankfurt (1-1), were very lucky. Louis Oppie was unable to take advantage of another lapse in the Berlin defense, Rönnow parried brilliantly.
It wasn’t until almost half an hour later that the Iron Men entered the encounter, with Rani Khedira hitting the crossbar (28′). The Berliners then increased the number of strikes and Danilho Doekhi missed the next big opportunity to equalize (44th). In stoppage time, Schäfer hit the post with his head, but Doekhi was unable to convert the rebound (45th + 3).
At the beginning of the second half, Berlin’s pressure eased. The Bielefeld team played the game evenly, but the visitors’ performance was disappointing for long stretches. The second goal had already been announced in the minutes before.
With a quarter of an hour to go, Union coach Bo Svensson put everything on one card. Attacker Kevin Volland came in for defense chief Kevin Vogt.
Source: www.sport.de
