Union Berlin – Leverkusen

Capital fans won’t see many goals in Saturday’s clash

Union Berlin represented Germany in the Champions League last season, but were so focused on their new status that they completely failed in the league. This led to the club parting ways with Urs Fischer, who made the Second Bundesliga representative a stable participant in European tournaments, including the Champions League. Already under the leadership of Bo Svensson, Union Berlin, this season professes a defensive style of play, which allows it to sit in tenth place after eleven rounds. The history of Bayer in recent years is known to everyone who has any interest in football. At the end of last season, the "pharmacists" collected all the titles in the national arena and almost brought to Leverkusen a victory in a minor European tournament. The drop in the level of play of last year's unbeaten Bayer in the Bundesliga was a matter of time, so Alonso has a lot of work to do. Bookmakers have identified the visitors as favourites for the upcoming encounter, offering odds of 1.74 on their victory. Union Berlin started the season at a very good level. In the first two months of the Bundesliga, the capital club lost only an away game against Borussia Gladbach. But Svensson's men beat Borussia Dortmund and took points away from Leipzig and Eintracht. Another thing is that the last month Union's business is not going well. The team lost all three away games, was drawn out of the German Cup, and the only home match ended in a 0-0 draw with Freiburg. During this period, Union Berlin did not score a single goal. Bayer have scored a total of ten goals in the last two official meetings - five each to Salzburg and Bayer. However, Alonso's men feel so convincing only against opponents with disorganised defence or with unreasonably high ambitions. The experience of playing with the outsider Bochum, with whom Bayer recently parted ways with a 1-1 draw, or the first meeting of the Pharmacists in November (against Stuttgart - 0-0) proves the fact that the current German champion can and should be played with quality defence. Considering that Union Berlin's defence shares second place in the league with Leipzig in terms of goals conceded, we shouldn't expect many goals from the match.