Union Berlin's first competitive match of the 2024-25 season will see them travel to Volksstadion Greifswald to face Greifswalder FC in the first round of the DFB-Pokal on Saturday evening.
The hosts are returning to this competition for the first time since 2021 when they were beaten in the first round by Augsburg, while the visitors were knocked out in the second round last season by Stuttgart.
Match preview
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Last season, Greifswalder came agonisingly close to securing direct promotion to Germany's third tier, the Regionalliga Nordost, but fell three points short of eventual league winners Energie Cottbus.
They overcame TSG Neustrelitz 5-0 in a lopsided final match of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Cup back in May, which earned a spot in the first round of the DFB-Pokal for just the second time in the club's history.
However, Lars Fuchs's side do not enter this match in great form, as they have already lost two of their first three Regionalliga matches this season, with the most recent coming last weekend when they slumped to a 3-1 defeat to Carl Zeiss Jena.
As is often the case in first-round cup ties, this is a perfect example of a David versus Goliath matchup, but one that Greifswalder and its players will relish in front of their home fans, who had bought out the 5,000 tickets on sale in under 24 hours of them being made available.
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Meanwhile, Union Berlin will head into this season-opener off the back of a solid pre-season, which consisted of five friendlies, with only one ending in defeat, while the remaining four finished in draws against Rangers and Real Sociedad and wins over Chemie Leipzig and Dinamo Kyiv.
Die Eisernen will be looking for major improvement this season after an almost catastrophic 2023-24 campaign, where they avoided the relegation scrap by the skin of their teeth after finishing the previous season in a Champions League spot.
Over the course of last season, Union managed just nine wins in their 34 top-flight matches and also saw Urs Fischer's five-plus-year tenure at the club come to an end when he was sacked in November.
However, the Swiss tactician was not the only casualty in Die Eisernen's torrid season, as former Trabzonspor head coach Nenad Bjelica stepped in to steady the ship but lasted just 161 days before he too received the axe at the start of May.
Ex-Mainz boss Bo Svensson was appointed over the summer as the new long-term manager. The Dane will now look to mark his first game in charge with a victory and will likely be fairly confident in his team's chances given the gulf in class between the sides.
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Team News
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Greifswalder have a couple of notable absentees for this match, starting with Tom Weilandt, who has been out of action since January with illness and is not expected to return in the foreseeable future.
Midfielder David Vogt is the other player who will not feature here after sustaining a hamstring injury in pre-season. Oliver Daedlow was withdrawn early in the second half over the weekend and is flagged as a doubt.
Union Berlin are set to remain with youngster Yannic Stein and Josip Juranovic for extended periods, with both players having undergone surgery just prior to the start of the season.
Jerome Roussillon strained his hamstring in Union's penultimate match last season and is still working his way back to full fitness, while summer signings Tom Rothe, Laszlo Benes and Leopold Querfeld will all be in contention to make their debuts this weekend.
Greifswalder FC possible starting lineup:
Jakubov; Strietzel, Kratzer, Schmedemann, Griebsch; Farr, Kocer, Brandt, Daedlow; Benyamina; Abu-Alfa
Union Berlin possible starting lineup:
Ronnow; Vogt, Leite, Doekhi; Gosens, Tousart, Schafer, Haberer; Vertessen, Hollerbach; Siebatcheu
We say: Greifswalder FC 1-3 Union Berlin
While these types of mismatched cup ties do toss up a few shock results every so often, we do not expect to see one here, and fancy the visitors to secure a fairly comfortable victory and entry to the next round.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Devesh Jaganath
