The Women’s Bundesliga Returns
Union Kick off 2026 Against Leverkusen
1. FC Union Berlin’s women’s team will finally kick off 2026 on Friday evening when they host Bayer 04 Leverkusen. The Google Pixel Women's Bundesliga game, under the floodlights of the Stadion An der Alten Försterei at 18:30
The lie of the land
Leverkusen had been struggling as they entered the five-week winter break, losing five of their last six competitive games, the last of this run coming in the 3-0 away loss to FC Bayern München.
Union, on the other hand, were showing an upward trend. After a hard-fought 2-2 draw against Eintracht Frankfurt, they rounded off the year with a 2-1 away win at 1. FC Nürnberg.
After nine matchdays, Bayer 04 Leverkusen seemed on course to match last year's best ever Bundesliga finish, fourth place. At that point, Bayer were in third place in the table with 19 points and had only been beaten by the title contenders from Munich and Wolfsburg 2-0 and 5-1, respectively. Since then, however, they only managed to pick up three more points, causing Leverkusen to slip to seventh place. In addition, the Werkself were knocked out of the DFB Pokal in the round of 16 by newly promoted Hamburger SV.
Head coach Roberto Pätzold used the winter break for an eight-day training camp in Portugal. As part of this, Leverkusen played a friendly against Swiss league leaders Servette FC, winning comfortably 3-0.
Centre forward Vanessa Fudalla was her usual accurate self in the friendly. The summer signing from Leipzig is by top scorer with eight goals this season, ranking fifth in the Bundesliga scoring charts. The 24-year-old scored her first goal in a B04 jersey at home against Union.
Bayer 04 won the first competitive match between the two sides, 3-2. Union had got off to a dreadful start in their first ever Bundesliga away game, finding themselves 2-0 down after just six minutes. However, the guests showed great morale almost reaching parity through Dina Orschmann and Tomke Schneider. In the end, though, they were unable to get a point.
The coaching team will have to do without Judith Steinert, Anna Aehling, Korina Janež, Mariann Noack, Naika Reissner and Tomke Schneider on Friday evening.
"We've worked a lot on our play in the final third, we want to score more goals and improve defensively so we can celebrate more wins than in the first half of the season,” said Ailien Poese during her press conference on Thursday afternoon. “First and foremost, we want to be solid defensively and we know that Leverkusen are one of the top teams in the league coming to the Alte Försterei. Our goal will be to approach the game courageously set an attacking tone."
Tickets for the match are available for public sale at all Union-Zeughäuser and also online. The Stadion An der Alten Försterei opens its gates and the day ticket counter at 17:00. There are no parking spaces available in front of the main stand.
The game will be broadcast live in Germany on DAZN and Magenta Sport. Union will also provide updates on the game via the club's own live ticker, as well as in English on Twitter. As ever, a full English match report will be published on the Union website shortly after the final whistle.
