Union and Stuttgart defy xG and low expectations in joyous Berlin thriller | Bundesliga

It was not the game, at the start of the weekend, that leapt from the fixtures page as a history maker. Even afterwards, if you looked at the numbers below the top line it hardly seemed a game to make you leap from your seat.

Yet few first halves have scrambled perception and expectation as much as Union Berlin’s meeting with Stuttgart on Saturday evening. Fifty-one minutes and 48 seconds which bedazzled and befuddled in equal measure at Stadion An der Alten Försterei, the claustrophobic arena known for unrelenting atmosphere, emotion but very few goals. In this first half, Union matched a third of the goals they had already scored at home all season, taking their season tally in their yard from 12 to 16. It was the first time a Bundesliga game has ever contained eight first-half goals; four, in this case, for each side.

Let’s be clear: it was a bit of a fluke. The xG numbers at half-time were as perplexing as the actual score, with 0.78 playing 0.68. Some of the goals, as that would suggest, were netbusters, from trusted sources like the left boot of the sublime Enzo Millot for the visitors, and from less expected providers like Leopold Querfeld. Union’s young Austrian centre-back smashed their third into the top corner from a long way out; when Querfeld’s captain, Christopher Trimmel, suggested afterwards he should now be on free-kick duty, it was unclear whether he was joking). By the end of a goalless second half – and many of the regulars were probably grateful for the chance to catch their breath – only Union of the two nudged their xG figure over one, more typically from a sum total of 22% possession. The game had delighted and defied reason.

So on the day when Union marked their 200th Bundesliga game and their 100th at home, they got the point that made mathematically sure of survival and a seventh straight season in the top flight. That they made certain against Stuttgart, the team they squeezed past on away goals back in 2019’s relegation playoff, made it all the more special. Stuttgart have recovered from that relegation with some aplomb, accelerating under the stewardship of Sebastian Hoeness to last term’s pinnacle of Bundesliga runners-up and Champions League participation. Failure to win here all but guaranteed they will not be returning to the top table of European competition next season, and this underlined both why that is the case, and why they will be a loss to it.

Last month’s signing of a new extension with Hoeness, tying him to Stuttgart until 2028, is the best bit of business the club will do all year. The former Hoffenheim manager has not only dragged the team up while losing good players all the way, but has done it playing brave, front-foot football. This was in evidence during the first half in Köpenick. Two-nil down, and then 3-2 down in the 42nd minute, Stuttgart were close to taking a 4-3 lead into half-time before Andrej Ilic nodded in his second for the hosts.

For Stuttgart, it’s been a season of challenges: showing they can deal with the increase in pressure, the higher-level games, the fuller calendar. Hoeness’s side created opportunities to do something extraordinary only to then let it slip; impressing in defeat by Real Madrid at the Bernabéu in September, seeing a two-goal lead evaporate against Leverkusen this time last month or climbing the mountain here in Berlin before slipping to fall face down in the mud.

Deniz Undav, whose permanent signing from Brighton was the big transfer market win coming into this season, is perhaps symbolic of it all. He scored with a typically smart finish here, but it was his first goal since January, and the Germany striker was only in the XI because Nick Woltemade was suspended. After the game, Undav accepted he has found it difficult to block out “negative and critical voices” this season. Yet there is still plenty to take from the campaign, with a clear path to Europe in the DfB Pokal final against Arminia Bielefeld, even if the third-tier side have already eliminated a clutch of Bundesliga teams, including Union in the second round and Leverkusen in the semis.

If Stuttgart have struggled with vastly adjusted expectations and demands, Union have written the book on it in recent years, from being the first club from the old East Berlin to reach the Bundesliga to qualifying for the Champions League themselves, signing players like Max Kruse, Robin Gosens, Leonardo Bonucci and Kevin Volland, while losing legendary coach Urs Fischer along the way. This, they hope, will be looked back upon as a difficult season of recalibration.

“That was hard work,” exhaled Steffen Baumgart, the coach who looked as if he had inherited too stiff a task when he arrived in winter and walked straight into a shambolic, deflating defeat by Heidenheim in his first game. Baumgart was a player here between 2002 and 2004 – “I was here when Union wanted to be in the Bundesliga 10 years later,” he laughed, “though [they were] in the Oberliga [fifth tier] at the time” – and this clearly means so much to him. He appears the perfect person to continue regrounding Union and it will continue. One of the stars that didn’t quite work out, Volland announced his return to his first club, 1860 Munich, on Easter Monday – perhaps persuaded by his time at Union that reconnection with self is a worthy path.

Ultimately, that is what this record-breaking afternoon was: self-affirmation and a thankfulness for what has been for both clubs. After the years of plenty, there is great joy to be taken in still just being here.

Talking points

• This was also the weekend in which the title was probably decided. Bayern recovered from their Champions League elimination with a breeze of a 4-0 win at Heidenheim, Harry Kane opening the scoring with his 24th league goal of the season). Leverkusen let a lead slip late in their 1-1 draw at St Pauli, who were well worth the point and have almost guaranteed their own safety. “We have to be honest,” lamented the Leverkusen goalscorer Patrik Schick, whose team have simply run out of gas and are now eight points adrift with four to play. “Our chance has gone.”

• There is plenty left in the Champions League race, though. Borussia Dortmund were the weekend’s big winners, coming back from a goal down at home to Mönchengladbach to put the game away with a three-goal flurry just before half-time. BVB have now beaten three of their direct competitors and drawn away at Bayern in the last four, moving just four points behind fourth-placed Leipzig, who could only draw with Holstein Kiel.

• Werder Bremen are right there with Dortmund after a fourth straight win, with Mitchell Weiser’s quick thinking clinching the points against Bochum late on; the former Bayern man prodded home when everyone thought he was offside, but the injured Maximilian Wittek was playing him on and VAR validated the goal. Mainz, meanwhile, missed numerous chances to put away Wolfsburg and then conceded a late, late equaliser to Denis Vavro, extending their winless run to five (“Today it really hurts,” complained skipper Jonathan Burkhardt), though they remain just two points shy of fourth. Freiburg leapt above them with Lucas Höler scoring twice to inspire victory over Hoffenheim.