Marin Ljubičić has had far from the easiest time at Union, at least since scoring in his dream debut against Hoffenheim the season before last. Indeed, last season saw him out on loan at a Fortuna Dusseldorf side who would slump into the 3. Liga, but Mauro Lustrinelli seems to have some faith in his abilities. He seems to have seen something in him, something that Rani Khedira alluded to after he turned this first-round cup-tie against Eintracht Braunschweig “We maybe didn’t have a player like him,” he said.

Pre-season went well for the Croatian. Now, having watched them go behind twice to a determined and belligerent opponent in front of a rousing, partisan home crowd, he scored a brace and set up another to put 1. FC Union Berlin into the 2^nd round of the Cup.

Some things in football you just can’t predict after all. Union hadn’t won here in a decade-and-a-half. After the final whistle, beaming, he played it down. “I’m happy for myself, the team and the club,” he said.

Smoke had poured out of both ends at kick off – the blue running track keeping them from the tatty pitch, still pockmarked from the American football that also calls this stadium home - and still lingered as the game began at a furious pace; the Braunschweig tifo inspired by Bob Ross, the American painter and broadcaster, the Union end in a more sober, if still impressive red, white and yellow.

Yet, it wasn’t just in the stands the hosts wanted to make an impression.

Lustrinelli, in his first ever competitive game in charge of Union, is still seeing his changes take effect. With 40 minutes up, and the scores level, Leopold Querfeld picked up the ball inside his own box. The defender looked up to see his coach up the line, pointing desperately to where Emanuel Latte Lath and Ilyas Ansah were agitating for space up front. His message couldn’t have been any clearer, were it written in hundred-foot letters, way up in the Lower-Saxon sky.

Get the ball moving forwards and do it fast.

He had said in the wake of last weekend’s loss to Ipswich that it was still going to take a little time for the automatisations to click in, for his side to do what he wanted, as naturally as he wanted. But there were flickering signs here of it starting to happen. It just took a while to kick in.

In his dark blue suit jacket, and trainers as white as the driven snow, he stood at the very apex of his technical area as Ilyas Ansah flicked his header just over the bar just a minute or two into a finely contested game. He then turned away after Matheo Raab tipped Max Marie’s shot over the Union woodwork a moment later. Raab held Florian Flick’s half volley after that, before, much easier, catching a ball from the Braunschweig half that steepled to the height of the floodlights, dropping slowly, but still enough to cause a certain nervousness.

The hosts’ endeavour was to be repaid early as Marie gave them the lead, hitting his shot past Raab as he fell, bending it past the lunge of the Union stopper and inside the back post. The stadium erupted in deep-voiced glee

Josip Juranović, cheered on by his boss, tried to take back the momentum, charging down the right, his long throw seeing Zeno Van Den Bosch putting his shot too close to Ron Hoffmann in the Braunschweig goal, shortly after he had saved an effort from Livan Burcu, who couldn’t get as much whip onto his shot as he’d have liked.

Undaunted, Braunschweig attacked again, with Junior Zé and Maximilian Entrup combining, forcing a superb, last-ditch tackle from Rani Khedira to break up their rapid movements before a gap opened up to shoot from. Aaron Opoku then beat Juranović down the left, his low cross just intercepted by Leopold Querfeld who got down to ground level to nod it the way of Raab and safety.

Union stepped up as the half reached its halfway mark, with Khedira and Latte Lath exchanging passes, Tom Rothe whipping in a cross from the left, and Wooyeong Jeong bending one over having cut inside onto his left. Eintracht were disciplined and strong in the tackle, and Union were struggling to break them down.

But, with half an hour almost gone and with pressure mounting, Burcu snuck round the back to meet Jeong’s clever, chest-height cross.  His touch saw it go out for a corner, from which Union drew level. Juranović trotted across the width of the pitch to take it, hitting the ball deep and bending outwards for the rising Van Den Bosch. Having scored against Ipswich last weekend, his planted header was perfect, placed directly between Hoffmann and his back post.

Roused, Braunschweig came back, and Noah Katterbach couldn’t believe his ill-fortune when his rocket of a shot, hit swerving and dipping from the edge of the box, crashed down off the underside of the bar and away.

The game was now open, dashing and, at least for a neutral, utterly compelling. Juranović nipped in to clear a perceptive little ball into the Union box towards Entrup, Flick did the same as Latte Lath almost slipped Ansah through. With 40 minutes on the clock, Opoku, at the other end, couldn’t quite get enough on his shot to curl it into the top corner. As the break came, it was hard to see who would have been happiest.

The second half began with the sight, and sound of Lukas Frenkert in agony, the victim of an accidental clash of heads with Querfeld as they challenged for the next Juranović set-piece, hit dangerously into the box. Mehmet Aydin then caught Burcu, having seen the ball flicked as delicately as it was cheekily- as only Burcu can – past him up the line.

But just as they had in the first, Braunschweig looked to take Union on early in the half. Raab had to punch clear twice in succession, first from a corner, arrowing inside his near post, then from a cross. For the second he had to launch himself, fists-first, to make enough contact. Khedira made certain of things, belting the retrieved ball, diagonally, as far away from danger as possible.

Their second came after 54 minutes, and it was finely worked, as Marie and Zé played the ball between them, daringly, as they approached the now backpedalling Union back-line. Marie stroked his shot home, giving Raab no chance. They should have had a third moments later, but Van Den Bosch got just in the way as Samuele Di Benedetto loomed free. Rampant, Marie saw his next shot flicked away for a corner.

But, still, with an hour almost played, Union were inches away from equalising again, this time after Rothe’s burst down the left and tantalising ball inside for Ansah was deflected away from the striker just in time.

Lustrinelli made his first changes next, with Andras Schäfer and Ljubičić replacing Jeong and Latte Lathe. They would both have an immediate effect on the game’s momentum, and the result itself.

Schäfer won Union’s next corner almost immediately, after Rothe had switched play, cleverly from left to right, via Querfeld. Again, the corner was hit by Juranović, flicked on by Ljubičić to the back post where Rothe finished things off.

Within nine minutes they scored again. Juranović robbed Opoku way back in his own half, hitting a dream of a diagonal ball, high into the path of Ansah. He took his marker, Kevin Ehlers, on, the ball at his toe, his right hand cocked slightly at the waist. Driving onto his left his shot was saved by Hoffmann, but Ljubičić was there for the follow-up. All he had to do was poke it over the line.

Lustrinelli, now with his hands in his pockets, reacted by bringing on two players whose times at Union couldn’t be more diametrically opposed. Christopher Trimmel, rapidly approaching his 400^th cap for the club replaced Juranović, joined by Michel Aebischer, on for Burcu, who arrived in Berlin for the first time on Wednesday.

One of Aebischer’s earliest touches was the most graceful of passes stroked out to Rothe, having found himself a pocket of space to the left of the centre-circle. His next was a brutish dive at the feet of Ze at the edge of his own box. He would soon be seen sent sprawling to the ground by an Aydin shove as the Braunschweig midfielder grew incensed at a late tackle. They were both booked in the end.

 It may only have been the smallest of cameos, but there was enough in it to give the 2,500 Union fans plenty of cheer.

Braunschweig weren’t to give up yet, not after all they had put into this excellent game, but things were no longer falling in their favour. One shot was skewed high and wide from the edge of the box, the next was tipped wide by a superb Raab save.  

But it was Union who ended the game the strongest, with Schäfer getting a sight of goal having burst into the box and, somehow, kept control even after he went to ground, the as Rothe won another corner; hotly contested as he nudged it by the flag.

The final flourish came with the last kick of the game, as Ljubičić bagged his brace following a last Union break, Braunschweig having thrown all they had forwards in a last, desperate advance. He wheeled away in delight. If it was Lustrinelli’s literal debut, for him, it must have felt like a new beginning