Steffen Baumgart had been growing increasingly irritated at the questions coming his way about his strikers. He would be more worried, he had said repeatedly, if they weren’t getting chances. He trusted them, he said. They’d come good, he said.

And on a rousing, glorious, defiant Friday night at the Alte Försterei they proved him right. Ilyas Ansah, Oliver Burke and Tim Skarke all scored to put Leipzig to the sword. To cap a fantastic all-round display. For Burke and Ansah it would be their fourth and fifth goals of the league season, respectively. But for Skarke, it was his first for the club, over two spells, over 54 games. His delight as he roared away in the 93^rd minute was as clear as the freezing night sky above him.

For a time, it didn’t even look like things would turn out that way at all. Union were superb, but until the dam broke in the second half with Burke’s beauty, many were thinking already of the last two goalless games between the sides, wondering if a single one would ever appear. 

But all that was to come. If the last month’s fixtures had been started with the awkward silence of protest, this one began in similar nature, if not intent – and for 15 minutes. For the Union fans the visit of Leipzig will always evoke a spirit of football they have no belief in. They were clad, largely, in black, just as they were going all the way back to their first game against the club, back in 2014.

The tension and simmering enmity was high at kick off in the stands, and it showed, too, on the pitch. Ilyas Ansah’s touch was just out when he received the ball in the centre-circle; Oliver Burke chose to cut in when a  burst into the box seemed to be on. Kosta Nedeljkovic got in behind Derrick Köhn but overhit his cross from the right.

But there were flickering moments of beauty too, just as when Aljoscha Kemlein skipped around David Raum bythe touchline, conjuring the space to find Burke in the box, or when Wooyeong Jeong cleverly ducked under a long ball, leaving his marker stood stock-still, before he cracked Union’s first shot over the bar. Diogo Leite would have the second when he followed up on Köhn’s free kick, but Peter Gulacsi held his waist-high, first time shot.

After the silence had broken, Rönnow made a superb save, diving to his right to deny Yann Diomande, palming his stinging shot wide of his left-hand upright.

Union were pressing high and hard – with Köhn doing particularly well on the left - and Ansah flicked Khedira’s cross across the box where Haberer was a whisker away from connecting at the back post. But as the half wore on the sides were cancelling each other out with a certain, familiar regularity.  When Leipzig broke, Leite and Querfeld were always there, and when David Raum lined up a free kick just outside the box, he clipped it well over.

Querfeld and Conrad Harder were engaged in a running battle, clashing at each and every ball, Querfeld coming out on top more often than not. Leite then started a lightning break, laying the ball off for Ansah who, ignoring his team-mate’s overlapping run, squared for Burke. It took all Castello Lukeba’s strength to stop him getting a first time shot away.

If Union hadn’t scored, it wasn’t for a lack of effort. Kemlein flashed at a left-footed volley with 44 minutes gone, a gap having opened up in front of him, but he dragged it wide. Burke covered 35 yards in the bat of an eyelid before the half was up to recover a loose ball before Köhn hit one final cross, causing havoc with its trajectory across the box, but Haberer saw his effort, bounce off his knee and go just wide.

Union almost got ahead with practically the first kick of the half as Burke chased down Gulacsi, drawing a fine reflex stop at the last, but the attritional nature of the game remained unchanged. Kemlein grappled with Lukeba, Khedira with Raum, Doekhi with Diomande, all within moments of each other. Leite made a wonderful, tough tackle on Harder; Ansah won a corner, battling with Orban all the way to the byline; Raum saw a yellow for complaining, while Doekhi got one for dragging back Diomande.

It was always going to take a moment of magic to break the deadlock, and with an hour almost up, Oliver Burke supplied just that. Picking up the ball inside right after a lovely piece of play from first Kemlein, then Jeong, he cut in and bent a fine, curling effort with his left foot into the top corner.

Baumgart made his first changes almost immediately, bringing on Christopher Trimmel for Haberer, but before they even got a chance to get warm, Leipzig drew level as fellow recent substitute Tidiam Gomis drifted out right onto Harder’s pass, shooting low past Rönnow and in. 

Things had now exploded into life, with the sight of Khedira pulling off a Zidane turn on the halfway line, and Köhn chasing crossfield to tackle Diomande imperiously.

Then bedlam. Trimmel took to the wing and hit a perfect cross, whipping and bending to where Ansah powered in at the near post, his bullet header giving Gulacsi no chance as he was caught in no mans land. It was a wonderful, devastating move.

Again, Baumgart made two more changes following the goal, this time bringing on Andrej Ilić and Andras Schäfer for Jeong and Burke.

There was little let up, and Harder was booked when Diomande hauled down Kemlein, rushing up to remonstrate with the sprawling Union midfielder, having to be pushed away by his own man before he got too close in his fit of rage. Union were harrying their opponents every time they had the ball, and Christoph Baumgartner saw his mis-pass roll harmlessly out when all the spaces around him were suddenly closed off by the swarming red and white shirts. Willi Orban had to clean up ahead of Ilić when Xaver Schlager passed carelessly back. When Harder had the chance to shoot with ten minutes to play, he blazed well over the bar.

Union continued to create chances, the next falling for Schäfer when he drove straight at Gulacsi, but with such power that the keeper struggled to hold it the first time, the ball almost dropping for the onrushing Ilić.

With little over five minutes normal time remaining, Baumgart made his final substitutions, taking ff Ansah and Köhn for Stanley Nsoki and Tim Skarke, Nsoki taking up position on the left hand side. Skarke was further upfield, from where he tested Gulacsi early on following the next picture-perfect pass from Trimmel - this one up the line having controlled with his chest when others may have tried to head it forwards, as if he had all the time in the world.

With four minutes added on, Union seemed content to defend, Leite marshalling the line of five as if he had an architect’s ruler in his hand, but there was another twist in the tail to come. Rönnow hit long. Ilić worked his way down the right, finding Skarke.

He finished, emphatically, slamming the ball past Gulacsi, and reeling away to the corner. He – they all – had been vindicated. For almost the last kick of their last home game before Christmas, he had picked a hell of a moment to get off the mark.