Union Berlin have structured their pre-season in the way that I set up mine on Football Manager. Their first two pre-season games they won 12-2 and 16-0 against lower league opposition before three draws and three defeats against some more competitive sides, then a victory against Cypriot side Aris Limassol last weekend.

The German side finished 11th in the Bundesliga last season and will be going into their eighth season in the division this year making them an established Bundesliga club. Like a lot of the sides Town have faced in pre-season, it is also a season of change for Die Eisernen (the Iron Ones) in the managerial hotseat.

Steffan Baumgart was sacked having won just two out of 14 fixtures in the 2026 calendar year and was replaced by Marie-Louise Eta, who made history becoming the first female manager in history to lead a men's team in the Bundesliga, albeit on an interim basis as she is now back in charge of the women's team having achieved her objectives.

The man at the helm now is Mauro Lustrinelli a Swiss manager who achieved the very impressive feat of taking FC Thun up into the top division of Swiss football and following that up by winning the Swiss Super League the very next season.

Union Berlin used a variety of formations last season with the most common being a 3-5-2 but transitioning to a 3-4-2-1 at times. Lustrinelli seems to have opted for a degree of stability with the majority of pre-season games featuring a 3-4-2-1 but he has also used a 4-2-3-1 which is more of a departure in other fixtures.

Thirty-three-year-old Dane Frederik Rønnow is likely to continue this season as number one goalkeeper, but his 2025/26 campaign was ended early by injury in April. He's not featured in pre-season so far, so it's likely one of Matheo Raab or Carl Klaus will start in goal for this fixture.

Klaus replaced Rønnow at the back end of last season conceding four goals in four games whilst Raab came in just the one time in a game against Freiburg, making six saves and preventing 1.71 goals in that game alone as he secured a clean sheet.

Two out of three of last year's most common starters in the back three have left the club leaving just Leopold Querfeld. The young Austrian has five caps for his national team and it's no surprise the German side wanted to keep hold of him as he's good in the air, strong in the tackle and good with his feet.

The rebuild around him has begun. Stanley Nsoki's loan deal from TSG Hoffenheim has maybe surprisingly been made permanent despite the Frenchman only starting 10 matches while Marvin Friedrich returns for his third spell in Berlin, rejoining on a free having been sold to Borussia Monchengladbach for €5.5 million back in 2022. He didn't play much football last season but knows the club well and can pass down some knowledge to the other new signing in defence, Zeno Van Den Bosch.

The 23-year-old Belgian joins from Royal Antwerp following an ever-present season. Like Querfeld he brings both defensive acumen as well as ability on the ball and Lustrinelli will no doubt be hoping they can form the base of his defence for a long time.

Despite the overhaul in the middle of defence, both wing-backs from last season are still at the club. Christopher Trimmel is showing no signs of slowing down despite approaching his 40th birthday. He averaged 5.7 crosses per game and 0.36 big chances created, so Town will need to watch out for his deliveries.

On the other side is Ghanain Derrick Kohn. No stats jump out for him in particular but alongside Trimmel the pair made the most passes into the final third and also had a high number of touches in the final third, which means they'll be tasked with attacking as much as defending, if not more so.

Croatian Josip Juranović will provide cover on the right with Germany U21 international Tom Alexander Rothe looking for more minutes on the left this season having already scored three times in pre-season.

Oluwaseun Ogbemudia who spent last season out on loan in Liga 3 with Mannheim is likely to be the other centre-back in the squad.

The midfield three are also still at the club and, as you can see from the graphic, they stay quite compact. The man whose name is covered is Rani Khedira, brother of Sami, who recently switched his international allegiances to Tunisia to feature in the World Cup. He scored five goals in the Bundesliga last season.

He'll be the part of a pair alongside Aljoscha Kemlein, another German U21 international, who has come through the Union Berlin academy. He'll be tasked with doing the dirty work with more ball wins in the midfield third than anyone else in the squad last season.

Slightly ahead of them is likely to be András Schäfer, who is another functional midfielder more suited to the defensive side of the game. Where he differs from the other two is that he does enjoy a shot from range with both of his goals last season coming from outside the box.

This leaves us with the attacking pair where it was very much a rotation of three players into two slots with Ilyas Ansah, Andrej Ilić and Oliver Burke fighting for starts.

They shared the goal burden with Ansah and Ilić netting five times and Burke doing one better on six, but offered different profiles for different games.

Ilić is more of the out-and-out centre-forward with a large number of touches in the opposition box, whilst Burke and Ansah operated more down the flanks with Burke drifting out to the right and Ansah out to the left. With a new manager at the helm there is a possibility that all three could start.

Interestingly, Burke has been used as a left wing-back, with Ansah operating behind the striker in pre-season.

If Lustrinelli does end up going with two players behind a number nine then opportunities could open up for South Korean Woo-Yeong Jeong, whilst Martin Lubicic, a 24-year-old Croatian who spent the second half of last season on loan at Fortuna Dusseldorf with the aim of building up fitness after a long spell out injured, has scored four times in pre-season as he looks to get himself back into the frame.

Twenty-one-year-old Livan Burku and 19-year-old Dymytro Bogdanov could also feature from the bench. Both are naturally wingers and allow a formation switch to a more attacking 4-2-3-1 if and when it is needed.

There's one late addition to the Union Berlin attacking unit and it's a familiar face who Town have been linked with in the past. Emmanuel Latte Lath, who was linked the last time the Tractor Boys were in the Premier League, has been largely uninspiring following his move to Atlanta United in the MLS and has been allowed to go on loan to rekindle that spark. He scored on his first start so his finishing ability is certainly still there.

foot_kick_ball_goal added 08:55 - Aug 15 Seems like attacking this team would have very much suited McKenna's system; sounds like their left and right back would be under pressure from our speedy wingers. New team and new manager though; so should be interesting to watch. Is my daughter's first town game too so couldn't hope for a better day! (Provided we get the win too) On the train to Berlin now and it's fantastic weather for it. Uppa Towen! Side note is that dealing with the union Berlin ticket sales has been tricky. I made the mistake of going direct to their website and it funneled me into buying a ticket for the home end. Figured that sitting amongst their ultras with a 2 year old would be an error of judgement, so phoned them up to try and switch my ticket to a home one. Then got yelled at down the phone that they don't allow cancellations and then they hung up on me. Disgusting behaviour. Perhaps they should come to Portman road next preseason so they can see how a proper stadium is run.... Plus we are fancy and have seats.

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