1. FC Union Berlin have reached agreement on a contract extension with both head-coach Urs Fischer and co-coach Markus Hoffmann, ensuring both will continue their successful work at the club together.

Fischer took over the sporting reins at Union on 1. July 2018, with Hoffmann, who had already been Fischer's co-trainer at FC Basel, joining him the same summer. Since then - working alongside their coaching team, the playing staff, and with staff from within the entire club - they have been writing a story of previously unimaginable sporting success.

In their first season together in Köpenick, they achieved a historic promotion to the Bundesliga, following this feat up by then keeping Union in the league, securing safety long before the end of that first top flight season.

Then, the following year, the team left no doubt as to their suitability for the Bundesliga, impressing with a seventh place finish in the table and with it ensuring qualification for the UEFA Europa Conference League.

Despite the heavy workload from three competitions weighing down upon them, Fischer's team once again silenced any of their remaining doubters, and established themselves in the top half of the table. By the end of the 2021-22 season, Union had qualified for the UEFA Europa League in 5th place, also reaching the semi-finals of the DFB Pokal.

Now, seven match days in, Union are currently sitting top of the Bundesliga. 

"Urs Fischer is an excellent coach who, together with the entire coaching team, has led us into the most successful sporting phase in our club's history. Our work together has always been characterised by a great mutual respect and trust, and our talks about a continuing of this relationship proceeded along these lines,” said Union’s president, Dirk Zingler, about the contract extensions.

“There was never any question of not continuing our successful cooperation for any of us. I am very pleased that Urs Fischer and Markus Hoffmann will remain Unioners in the coming years.”

Fischer, himself, spoke of how happy he is in Köpenick. "What we have been able to experience together over the last few years is incredible. I find it hard to put into words. As I have often said, I feel very much at home at Union. The daily work together with the squad, as with the whole team here, achieved through the conditions that the club provides, and all the human interactions with each other, all of these have been important factors for our success in the past four years."

“I think we can still achieve a lot on this journey together, and I'm looking forward to being part of the club's continued development."

Co-trainer Hoffmann echoed Fischer’s sentiments. "When you look at the past few years and what we have achieved together, I’m very happy. There is an atmosphere running throughout the club, it makes it fun. Everyone pulls together to be as successful as possible and that's what I would very much like to continue doing here."

"The cooperation with Urs Fischer and Markus Hoffmann is well-tuned, and very successful. We now know each other very well and we know what makes the other tick. That kind of thing helps immensely in our day-to-day work and that's why I'm very pleased to have this continuity in these hugely important positions," said Oliver Ruhnert, Union’s director of professional football.