Max Eberl stood casually in the catacombs of the stadium at the Alte Försterei and enjoyed his personal premiere victory at Union Berlin.
“Today was an extremely manly performance by our team,” said the managing director of RB Leipzig and made a really satisfied impression. Mastered the difficult transfer period, started the season successfully with three wins in four competitive games. Eberl was happy about a time-out that he was about to take during the international break. “It’s been as long as I haven’t been on vacation in a long time. Thank God it’s been more than three days,” he said after the cup winner’s confidently played 3-0.
Rose relieved
Marco Rose, on the other hand, showed no signs of idleness, however brief. But the coach of the Saxons could also see how relieved he was that the remaining doubts were eliminated in view of an impending false start in the Bundesliga. The roaring Supercup victory at FC Bayern three weeks ago would have faded badly in another defeat against Union – the sixth in a row.
In contrast to Eberl, Rose has already won with Borussia Dortmund in the stadium at the Alte Försterei and still knows how difficult it is to get three points there. The coach did not choose the word manly like Eberl, but he found the performance of his young and partly newly assembled team to be “grown up”. Union was effectively deprived of power. RB hadn’t done that for a long time.
Search for constancy
While Eberl’s core work is done for the time being, Rose knows that six points and fourth place are only a first tender interim result after three days of play. “We still have a lot of issues to work through, it’s about consistency, the group is finding itself, we’re on the right track, but we won’t let ourselves be blinded,” warned the 46-year-old. “Whoever won always played adult.”
The coach was delighted by his young goalscorers Xavi Simons and Benjamin Sesko – both only 20 years old. The latter provides a fairly “complete package” of capabilities. “We have to get that on track now. It should make him greedy for more,” Rose demanded of his goal double.
Simons and Sesko as young guys, plus the experienced Willi Orban, Xaver Schlager, Kevin Kampl, Dani Olmo – that looked like a good framework with which RB could play at the top of the league in the coming weeks.
Timo Werner, who is only a substitute at RB and is not allowed to play in the national team, is currently not an important component. And Rose knows that personality can be a source of unrest. “Today you can write a lot about Sesko, about Simons, a lot about the team’s performance, but I understand that the player Timo Werner, who has done a lot for the club and is an international, will of course also be asked questions.” said Rose. “It’s part of it, it’s a competitive sport, it can happen to anyone, even a German national player.”
