1. FC Union Berlin rounded off 2024 in style by beating FSV Gütersloh 3-1 in the final day of the year. Anna Weiß gave the guests a first half lead, before Gütersloh equalised with almost the first touch of the second half. But Lisa Heiseler and Dina Orschmann rounded things off to leave Union second in the 2. Liga at Christmas.

1. FC Union Berlin: Bösl – Sakar, Weiß, Becker, Steinert – Frank (87. Niesler), Janez (60. Reissner), Moraitou – D. Orschmann (87. Trojahn), Heiseler (87. Rurack), Halverkamps (78. Blaschka) 

FSV Gütersloh 2009: Rolle – Baum, Schmidt, Hokamp, Kappmeier – Schuster, Preuß (73. Tappe), Bultmann (86. Weinhold), Tellenbröker – Baumgärtel (86. Rädeker), Berning (86. Kilic) 

The starting XI

Ailien Poese made one personnel change, and one structural, from the side that started last week’s 1-1 draw against Bochum, to her final starting eleven of the year.

In goal was Cara Bösl, but this time behind a back four of Fatma Sakar, in for Pia Metzker, on the right, Anna Weiß, Marie Becker and Judith Steinert, who had shifted out to the left.

Celine Frank anchored a midfield three behind Korina Janež and Athanasia Moraitou, which left Dina Orschmann and Antonia Halverkamps to play on the left and right, respectively, of Lisa Heiseler, up front.

Attendance: 150

Goals: 0:1 Becker (30.), 1:1 Baumgärtel (46.), 1:2 Heiseler (65.), 1:3 D. Orschmann (80.)  

Becker opens the scoring for Union

Five months ago, Union’s new season began, right here where the first half of it would end, in Gütersloh. It couldn’t have been more different. The sun shone endlessly into the late evening, the crowd enthused by a cup tie packed with unknowns, be that of an away side who had just been promoted to the 2. Liga that were hard to measure, or a side who couldn’t be more established in the 2. Liga to be measured up against.

Union finished that game, as breathless and punishing as it was, on their backs. Athanasia Moraitou spoke the next day of how grateful she was not to have to take one of the decisive penalties in the shoot-out. She wasn’t sure of she’d have been able to summon the strength to hit the ball, she said.

It is easy to forget, for she has re-established herself so quickly, that in the last game between the sides, Anna Weiß was still in recuperation from a cruciate injury. This was only her fourth game at all playing as part of a back three.

Here, though the team that started only had the absences of Charleen Niesler and Pia Metzker to differentiate themselves from that of the cup game, they were facing tiredness of a different kind. It has been a brutal few months, and Union have given the impression over the last couple of weeks of battling to get through to the break, but they started off with plenty of zip in their passing, if Cara Bösl had to be out quickly off her line in the opening passages of play to sweep up a long ball that suddenly posed a threat.

Indeed, once they had shaken a little of the dust off during the tough opening period, they looked as fresh as ever at times.

Marie Becker then tackled Merle Hokamp with the calmness that has personified her season so far, as her long ball out right to Dina Orschmann showed her vision. But it was hard going out there, and though Athanasia Moraitou had Union’s first shot on goal after ten minutes, it came straight back off the first defender it reached. Moraitou is one of Union’s lynchpins, one of the first names on Poese’s team sheet, and he was back on her own side of the halfway line a minute later, sweeping up in midfield, and passing back to Bösl carefully.

Union were starting to create more as the half wore on, however, and they couldn’t come much closer than the chance after 17 minutes when Sakar’s lofted ball found Heiseler at the back post. She lifted it artfully over the keeper, Sarah Rolle, but couldn’t find the space to shoot, so laid it off for Janež, whose own effort was somehow blocked and hoicked away to safety.

Orschmann would have the next effort, played in by Moraitou, and blasting a left-footed effort just wide of the left-hand upright as she aimed for the top corner.

Union were now in control, and once again, as it has so often this year, it was from a set-piece that they made the breakthrough. Heiseler hit her corner, deep, high and swinging in towards the back post where Marie Becker was looming, waiting for the chaos that broke out as the ball dropped, unimpeded. She caught it before it dropped, claiming her first goal of the season, even as the ball passed through the phalanx of bodies in the box, Weiß and Orschmann among them

Though Becker was happy with the credit, it mattered little who got the decisive touch, and few have performed better, more consistently this season. She was at the heart of it as they formed the tightest of huddles on the spot.

Only two minutes later Heiseler put just wide as she burst through on goal, a few minutes after that Moraitou also put wide with her wrong, right foot. But Dina Orschmann would create a better chance just after 40 minutes when she danced down to the byline, putting the ball one way of her marker, and running the other, before cutting the ball back for Janež whose pinpoint effort was well held by Rolle.

Union were one up at the break, with second place in their grasp.

Gütersloh get one early, but Heiseler and Orschmann score to leave Union in second

If they thought that they were in for an easy ride, however, Union should have known better. The cup game, after all, ended 2-2, and they fought tooth and nail for that. Within a minute of the restart, Gütersloh had equalised as Jaqueline Baumgärtl hammered home at the near post.

The hosts were now back on the front foot, transformed by the goal, and both Baumgärtl and Linda Preuß were causing problems, the latter drawing an excellent piece of defensive work from Antonia Halverkamps as she dropped deep to cover the danger with almost ten minutes of the second half played.

Gütersloh, however, were to have their work cut out for them, because only five minutes after that Celina Baum received her second yellow card for a foul on the tireless Halverkamps out on Union’s left-hand side. She trudged off to the catcalls of the travelling Union fans.

Ailien Poese would make her first change around the hour, when she brought Naika Reissner on for the excellent Janež, using the opportunity to drop Heiseler a little further back, and to move Orschmann a little more central.

The move paid dividends almost immediately as Reissner came on with a skip in her step, and broke immediately down the left-hand side, beating her marker and crossing flat across the box, a little behind Orschmann, but perfectly for the captain, Heiseler, who finished without breaking stride.

Reissner was now causing no end of trouble, and her next darting run saw Steinert’s shot deflected wide of the left-hand post for a corner, but it was Bösl who would take the breath away with her next move. Union’s stopper had spotted the danger immediately as Gütersloh broke after the longest of balls out, racing off her line to stop the striker in her tracks, leaving her in a heap, the ball once again safe and secure. It had been a remarkable intervention from Union’s number one, and it wasn’t her last.

Her next came as she got down to her right, somehow clawing a shot from the edge of the box around the back post. She would do just as well with ten minutes to go, tipping the ball away for a corner, that Gütersloh were certain they’d scored from, but the referee was quick to rule it out.

Football is nothing if not cruel, and within moments, with the home side still grumbling about the goal they’d been denied, Union had made it 3-1. Moraitou found the rampant Reissner again down the left, and again she crossed, this time for Orschmann who scored her seventh goal of the season with ease.

“I really wanted to decide the game with a goal or an assist for us,” said a jubilant Reissner. “In the end it was two assists, it couldn't have gone better.” Becker, meanwhile, said it was “quite a relief to go into the winter break with a win,” her sentence summing up the humility that defines this team.

As the final whistle loomed Poese made her final changes, bringing Zita Rurack, Charleen Niesler and Sophie Trojahn on for Frank, Heiseler and Orschmann, but this was about giving some minutes to a handful of the players who haven’t managed as many as they’d have liked this season. It was a sign of the unity in the team that they have all trained as hard as anyone else, that they have always been ready when needed.

Trojahn had already scored against Ingolstadt, of course, and Niesler played back at the beginning of the season against Gütersloh.

But that seemed a long time ago now. And few back then would have thought that this was possible. That Union would end the year in second place in the 2. Liga. Though they will unanimously tell you that the job is so far from done yet, their achievement has been little short of astonishing.