Nadine Böhi had been waiting patiently for a long time for this. Having sat through the Swiss EUROs on the bench, she had spent much of Union’s season doing the same. The reserve goalkeeper is one of the toughest of roles. Though she got a run of games in November and December - hardly a walk in the park, themselves, against Bayern, HSV and Hoffenheim – her teammates needed her to be focussed, ever present in training. Böhi never knew when she would be needed. Well, today was the day.  

Because after Lia Kamber had given the superb hosts a deserved lead, Bremen got a penalty, almost out of the blue. Who knows how things might have turned out.

The sun was setting over the Wuhlheide, the shadows long, and almost 7,000 people were in the Alte Försterei. The atmosphere was relentless, the away fans, who turned out in numbers almost unprecedented, more than playing their part.

But after a slightly scruffy start where neither side could quite land a pass, Union were the quickest to put together a move of consequence. Lisa Heiseler snapped into a tackle in midfield, finding Eileen Campbell who played the cleverest of passes out to Anna Weiß, advancing alone up the right-hand side. If her cross was overhit, a moment later Sophie Weidauer would be more decisive, stinging Bremen keeper, Mariella El Sherif’s hands with a wicked drive from 25 yards, the ball rising and swerving a little in the evening air.

If her opener against Leipzig was a masterpiece, this was at least one for the sketchbook.  

Campbell was dropping deep, tackling Lina Hausicke from behind, back towards the half-way line, while on the left, Judith Steinert was stepping up. Tanja Pawollek bustled into Maja Sternad on ten minutes, knocking her off the ball, and conceding the foul, but she set Heiseler free as Union patiently put together their next move, the ball ultimately finding Campbell who shot over.  

Böhi, called up in place of the injured Cara Bösl, dealt with her first challenge immaculately, holding Michelle Weiß’s cross two-handed, above her head.

But until that point, Union had the best of play in those early phases, and on 18 minutes, took a lead that had been coming. Michelle Ulbrich had little other choice but to floor Hannah Eurlings as she came in from the left. The free kick was taken short, from Heiseler to Eurlings, who whipped it into the box. With confusion sewed by the set-piece breaking out in the packed Bremen ranks, Lia Kamber was in exactly the right place to stab the ball past El Sherif and over the line.

Heiseler was at the heart of much of the best of Union’s play, darting at the tip of the Union midfield and forming a devastating link to the forward line when attacking, and tackling hard when she dropped deeper.

But with 25 minutes gone, the game reached its crucial moment. Juliane Wirtz hit a speculative shot from the edge of the 18-yard box, at chest height, where it struck Amber Tysiak on the hand. The referee, Miriam Schwermer, wasted no time in pointing to the spot. But that didn’t stir Böhi, she’d been waiting for this. When Larissa Mühlhaus skittered up to the ball, she waited for contact, flinging herself to her right to stop her shot. And though it flew back out into the box, she made herself big enough, flying out off her line, to block the rebound away and see it over the bar.

And in the minutes that followed, though Bremen were seeing more of the ball, Tysiak and Samantha Steuerwald at the heart of the Union defence were proving too strong, too well organised, too quick in the mind as well as the legs - though the pace in the latter certainly came in useful when Steuerwald raced across to stop Mühlhaus with 35 minutes gone.

But the hosts were still the better side. Campbell almost got onto the longest of balls with El Sherif almost panicking, and the whole crowd beseeching Eurlings to SHOOT when the ball final dropped to her, if just too late.

Their second goal was bread and butter, another set-piece routine made perfect. Weiß won a corner on the right. Heiseler took it. Tysiak came in at the near post and beat El Sharif with a bullet header. It was her first goal for Union since signing from West Ham in the Winter.

They saw the half out in some style. First, building a move that saw Pawollek’s pass flicked behind her back up the line by Eurlings to Steinert. She crossed into the box, a ball Heiseler dummied. And though Weidauer couldn’t reach it to shoot, it came out to Kamber who struck it hard and low. El Sharif saved, but only parrying the ball as far as the captain, Heiseler, who finished it with a flourish, and a dynamite sense of certainty.

The break came almost too soon. They were having the time of their lives out there. 

Predictably enough, Ailien Poese sent her side out for the second half unchanged, and they started from where they’d left off, with Pawollek playing Weiss in on the overlap, her low cut-back smashed by Eurlings first time, just wide. And though Bremen, with Medina Desic brought on at the break, strove to get back into the game, again Böhi was there to thwart them, first punching an inswinging corner clear, then holding the substitute’s drive from the edge of the box.

Campbell was first onto the ball from Heiseler’s next corner at the other end, but it looped just over the bar as the hosts continued to dominate, with the captain flourishing. She pinged one pass out into a gap few others had seen for Eurlings to run into, then threw another dummy as the ball passed her towards Campbell with a wave of the boot and drop of the shoulder. She laid one up for Kamber with an hour gone with another flash of technique while holding Wirtz at bay. Kamber hit it first time with the side of her boot, but hard. El Sharif just made it down and across to her left in time.

Kamber summed up the side so well. Technically, she had been impeccable, but having crashed to her knees on 65 minutes after a blow to the chest, only for play to go on around her, she sprung back up when the ball came nearby, winning it, and putting it back into circulation before crumpling again. After treatment, she passed to Pawollek, just outside the box, who chipped a shot onto the bar like she was suddenly playing in zero gravity. Time stopped and all looked on, stunned, as it floated like a dandelion seed in the breeze, but it didn’t quite drop quite enough.

On the stroke of 75 minutes, Campbell, Weidauer, Weiß and a Samantha Steuerwald who until this moment hadn’t missed a single moment of the season, were replaced by Nele Bauereisen, Dina Orschmann, Marina Georgieva and Ida Heikkinen. During a season where the Union side had been ravaged by injury, Steuerwald has been a desperately needed lynchpin. She had earned a break as much as anyone

Bauereisen was straight into the thick of things, making the cross that Hannah Eurlings, having made a diagonal run across goal from the opposite flank, towards the far post, nodded brilliantly, deftly past El Sharif to make it four nil. 

Eurlings would be off too, just a few minutes later, making way for Naika Reissner. And though Bremen got one back through Lena Petermann with five minutes of normal time remaining, the fans on the Gegengerade barely took pause to breathe. They had been complimented by the superb away fans, a good few hundred of them, and had never let the atmosphere drop. It only raised the question of how many would have been able to make it were this taking place on anything other than a Monday evening.

Indeed, their voices only quieted briefly as Orschmann was booked after crashing into El Sharif, flying into the keeper after she had just taken a touch too far as she bore down suddenly on goal.

There was still time for a final moment for Böhi to shine, diving to her right to parry Lena Petermann’s well-placed shot from the angle. She would hold Mühlhaus’s free kick, and subsequent first-time shot with unflappable ease too. As if Bremen’s night couldn’t get any worse, Saskia Matheis got a straight red card for her reckless challenge on Bauereisen in the centre-circle. But for the fans and for the players, it mattered little. The latter came together in a silent huddle on the pitch, the former sang out ever more, bouncing on their toes, clapping until their palms were raw.

And Böhi, dragged off before the party could even get started for the TV, was hugged by all she passed. If her team-mates had delivered the best performance of the season, the reserve keeper had come through for them at the biggest moment of all.

“From now on, I like Monday matches - it was three important points and I am very happy to have scored my first Bundesliga goal. With these fans at home behind us, we simply had an extreme desire to win and did so already in the first half. We are just in the flow.” 

“From the very beginning until the end, we went all out. We set out to give 100 percent and have no regrets after the game. I think that worked very well. Nadi delivered an outstanding performance. Not only with the penalty, but she also made a great save at the end.” 

“It was very good both in terms of the fighting spirit and the football. We found good solutions, recognized the spaces we could play into well, and the risk management was also spot on. We perfectly implemented what we discussed today, and I am very proud.”