Baumgart feels bite of winter as Union Berlin fight for Bundesliga survival | Andy Brassell
Share:
Over two decades on from his last match at the club as a player, Steffen Baumgart has overseen two ominous defeats. “You’re dressed!” exclaimed a surprised Frank Schmidt as he met his counterpart on the touchline on Sunday. For his first game in charge of Union Berlin, Steffen Baumgart was not just dressed in his customary cap and T-shirt, but in hoodie and gilet as well. A recognition, perhaps, that the team he is now responsible for are facing a long, hard winter.
![[Union Berlin’s Benedict Hollerbach (right) tangles with Augsburg’s Samuel Essende]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4715b0cf16cb66f936b0e59678d8c5a2ab846065/0_68_1696_1018/master/1696.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Being caught on the hop for a first game away loss, as Union were at Schmidt’s Heidenheim, is one thing. But 21 years after his last appearance for Union as a player, Baumgart made his home debut as head coach on Wednesday evening, and given the anticipation on all sides, this was probably even more deflating than Saturday’s comprehensive 2-0 away defeat. He had spoken about how he had never really had the Union job in his career plan as his feeling for the club would just make it mean too much. The 53-year-old wears his heart on his sleeve, even for a coach, and now he has the task of trying to keep the capital club in the division, it’s going to be an emotional rollercoaster.
![[Borussia Dortmund players look dejected after defeat]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/56b379f378dea0cc47af362c152b88c0c915132d/58_141_3580_2147/master/3580.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Baumgart knew he had a job on his hands but this couldn’t have started worse. Two peerless finishes by Alexis Claude-Maurice inside the first half-hour gave Augsburg, a team that arrived at the Alten Försterei with just two away points, a first victory on the road this season. Baumgart called his new team “inefficient”, though if he was implying they regularly created chances of note, he was being generous. Jordan Siebatcheu, without a goal for Union since last February, hit the crossbar when he really should have reduced the deficit early in the second half, but that was about as close as they got. Just 14 Bundesliga goals all season have led the Berliners to their current sequence of 10 league games without a win.
![[Jabob Bruun Larsen celebrates his equaliser for Stuttgart against RB Leipzig.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c071759ab830f74bbda71b5c2fb4f0b1c973e81f/0_170_5000_3001/master/5000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
