With Union Berlin’s Bundesliga status secured for another season after a dramatic late win against Freiburg, Kicker repot that club hierarchy wasted no time in beginning talks with former Mainz 05 Head Coach, Bo Svensson.
Svensson began his coaching career in 2019, with RB Salzburg feeder team, FC Liefering in the 2. Liga in Austria.
After a successful spell, Svensson became the new head coach of his former club Mainz 05 in the Bundesliga in 2021.
He lifted his side away from Bundesliga relegation in his first season in charge and managed to compete for the Europa Conference League qualification in his second.
After a run of nine games without a win at the start of his third season, Svensson stepped down by mutual consent in November 2023.
Svensson has not returned to coaching since and he faces competition for the Union role.
According to Union President, Dirk Zingler, interim coach Marco Grote remains an option.
With assistant coach Marie-Louise Eta and assistant coach Sebastian Bönig, Grote masterminded an unlikely victory that lifted Union Berlin above Bochum and to Bundesliga safety.
However, Union and Svensson have already begun formal discussions.
Svensson has made it clear that he is interested in the vacant Head Coach position and can “imagine” returning to coaching with the Köpenick outfit.
Speaking after yesterday’s victory, Union captain, Christopher Trimmel admitted that there is a lot of work to do for Union to improve and return to the heights of the Champions League qualification achieved last season.
“Today was better. That was typical Union-like again.
We didn’t fall apart, we didn’t let anything influence us. That’s what we’ve worked on over the last two weeks.
The club will analyse the season carefully and then we have to learn the lessons from it.
This season we had too many phases where the game was a bit crazy and open.
We have had three coaches and now we need to learn from this.”
It is unclear who will be leading those lessons but Svensson is the favoured candidate.
GGFN | Oscar O’Mara
