Buy Union Berlin tickets for the 2026/27 season and you are buying into the last full campaign at the Stadion An der Alten Försterei as it currently stands. The club has 71,967 members and a ground that holds 22,012, of which 18,395 are standing places. The final home match in the existing stadium is scheduled for May 2027, after which the terraces come down for a rebuild and Union spend 2027/28 at the Olympiastadion.
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That timetable is the single most important thing a buyer needs to understand about this season. Union have the tightest ratio of members to capacity in German football, more than three members for every place in the building, and the knowledge that the ground is closing for two years is not going to loosen it. Ticket prices have already risen by one to two euros across every category to help fund the work.
The football itself has stabilised after a difficult three years. Eleventh on 39 points last season was the highest finish since the club dropped out of Europe, Mauro Lustrinelli arrived from Thun on 21 May having just won the Swiss title with a newly promoted side, and Christopher Trimmel captains into a thirteenth season at the club. There is no European football this year, which means seventeen home league fixtures and the DFB-Pokal.
The arithmetic at Union is brutal in a way it is nowhere else in the Bundesliga. Season card holders renew, members buy in a priority window and general sale receives whatever is left of a 22,012-capacity ground after roughly 72,000 people have had their turn. For a large proportion of fixtures the answer is close to nothing.
This is not a club playing games with its allocation. It is a club whose support outgrew its stadium a decade ago and which has spent years trying to get permission to build a bigger one. The revised plan approved in 2025 lands at 34,500 rather than the 40,500 originally sought, because the local transport network in Köpenick cannot move more people than that. Until it is built, the shortage is permanent.
What that leaves for anyone outside the membership is the resale market, and at this ground it is not a convenience but the only realistic route. Places released by members who cannot attend a given week are what circulate, and for a visitor coming from outside Berlin they represent the difference between seeing this stadium before it changes and reading about it afterwards.
1BoxOffice has been trading live event inventory since 2006, which puts close to two decades of completed transactions behind everything on this page. The risk in resale is very rarely the price. It is whether the barcode in your inbox opens a turnstile on the day, and for a ground where places are genuinely scarce that is the only question that matters.
Sellers here are verified before their stock goes live, and every confirmed order carries a guarantee that pays out at 150% if something fails. A ticket that does not work at the Alte Försterei costs more than a ticket, because there is no walk-up alternative and no spare capacity anywhere in the building.
Union Berlin's membership stood at 71,967 on 31 March 2026, in a stadium that holds 22,012. No other club in the division comes close to that ratio, and it is the reason almost every fixture here behaves like a big match somewhere else. The demand drivers below explain what makes some dates harder still.
Berlin has 3.9 million people and two Bundesliga-level clubs' worth of history, but Union are currently the only one in the top flight. Add a stadium a third the size of the Olympiastadion and the pressure is structural rather than seasonal.
The practical conclusion is that there is no easy fixture at this ground. Plan months rather than weeks ahead, decide early whether you want to stand and treat the visits of Bayern, Dortmund and Schalke as a separate category requiring more notice than the rest.
Face value at Union is among the lowest in the Bundesliga and the club has protected that deliberately for years. Standing places run from around €17, seated tickets in the main stand from roughly €40 and the club raised every category by one to two euros ahead of this season specifically to help fund the stadium rebuild rather than to increase margin. Those are unusual numbers for a club that reached the Champions League three years ago.
Resale ranges here behave differently from most grounds. Scarcity rather than competition is the main driver, because there is no European football to price separately and almost every fixture sells out regardless of opponent. Position matters second, with the small seated main stand carrying a clear premium over the terraces. Timing matters third and it works against the buyer, because supply does not loosen close to matchday when the membership exceeds capacity three times over.
The table gives typical resale ranges in pounds for 2026/27. Treat them as planning figures rather than quotations, because this is a live market in a genuinely constrained ground.
| Type of Ticket | Typical Price Range (GBP) |
|---|---|
| Bundesliga standing (Waldseite, Gegengerade) | £20 – £70 |
| Bundesliga seated (main stand) | £45 – £130 |
| Bundesliga high-demand fixtures | £70 – £220+ |
| DFB-Pokal | £25 – £95 |
| Hospitality / VIP | £180 – £400+ |
Prices reflect typical resale ranges and may change as demand and availability shift.
Yes, and no membership requirement exists at any stage of the resale process. What membership brings at Union is a place in the sale queue, and with 71,967 members ahead of the general public that queue is the whole story. Joining does not guarantee a ticket either, which is a point the club has been open about.
For most fixtures, general sale delivers very little. This is one of a small number of German grounds where a visitor with no connection to the club has almost no realistic route through the front door for a Saturday afternoon, let alone for Bayern or Dortmund. It is not a policy problem, it is a capacity problem.
That is what makes the secondary market central here rather than supplementary. Members and season card holders who cannot attend a particular week release their places, and those places carry no eligibility condition at all. If you want to see this stadium before the rebuild, resale is the mechanism.
Season cards at Union renew automatically and the renewal rate sits at the top of the division, which follows logically from a membership that dwarfs the capacity. The waiting list has been closed or heavily restricted for years and the club has said openly that it cannot satisfy demand within the current ground. That is the case the whole rebuild rests on.
For a buyer, the consequence is a resale pool that is genuinely thin in absolute terms because the ground is small, but reasonably liquid in relative terms because 72,000 members produce a steady stream of people with a conflicting Saturday. Standing places circulate least. Seated main stand places circulate most, and they are also the most expensive.
| Season Card Type | Typical Price (GBP equivalent) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Standing, Waldseite | £170 – £240 | Behind the goal backing onto the forest, home of the ultras and the source of the singing. The most contested product the club sells. |
| Standing, Gegengerade | £170 – £240 | The long terrace along the far touchline, the largest single standing area in the ground and the busiest at the end nearest the Waldseite. |
| Standing, Sektor 4 | £160 – £220 | The half-end behind the goal next to the away sector, noticeably quieter than the rest of the terracing and the most obtainable standing option. |
| Seated, main stand | £380 – £620 | The only seated stand in the ground, 3,617 places along one touchline with cover and a full-length view. |
| Concessions | Reduced across categories | Children, students, apprentices and holders of a severe disability pass qualify for reduced rates. |
Season card ranges are approximate conversions of published bands and may change between campaigns, particularly with the rebuild levy now applied.
The Alte Försterei is divided into five numbered sectors rather than named stands, which is unusual in Germany and tells you something about how plainly this club does things. Four of the five are terracing. One is seated. There is no upper tier anywhere in the ground.
| Sector | Best For | Price Bracket | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sektor 2, the Waldseite | Atmosphere | Low | Standing terrace behind the goal, backing directly onto the Wuhlheide forest. Home of the ultras and the section that leads every song. Unreserved, so the good positions go early. |
| Sektor 3, the Gegengerade | Terrace without the intensity | Low | The long standing terrace along the far touchline with the most complete all-round view of the pitch. The end nearest the Waldseite is louder and busier than the far end. |
| Sektor 1, the main stand | Sightline and comfort | Highest | The only seated area in the ground, 3,617 places along one touchline, covered, with entry from An der Wuhlheide. Around €40 face value. |
| Sektor 4 | Availability | Low | The remaining half-end behind the goal, next to the away section and quieter than the other terraces as a result. The most likely standing area to have stock. |
| Sektor 5 | Visiting supporters | Set by the visiting club | The away section, allocated through the visiting club rather than sold openly. Home supporters should not buy here and neither should neutrals. |
| Accessible positions | Wheelchair users | Reduced | Dedicated positions with companion places. Book directly through the club's access team well in advance given the capacity constraints. |
One point that surprises visitors from all-seater leagues. With 18,395 of 22,012 places standing, the default experience at this ground is a terrace, not a seat. If you specifically want to sit, you are competing for one of 3,617 places and you should say so at the filtering stage rather than at checkout.
Union's travelling support is one of the more committed in the division and the away allocation is routinely filled well before matchday. A membership of nearly 72,000 against a home capacity of 22,012 means a large number of people who cannot get into the Alte Försterei go away instead, which inverts the usual pattern.
Berlin's position in the east also shapes the calendar. Leipzig is the only short trip. Everything else is at least four hours by rail, and the western away days at Köln, Gladbach and Leverkusen are genuinely long. The allocations still sell.
| Away Detail | What to Expect |
|---|---|
| Typical allocation | German league rules provide visiting clubs with up to 10 percent of capacity, ranging from around 3,000 at the smaller grounds to more than 7,000 at Signal Iduna Park. Union routinely take the full quota. |
| Where you will be | A segregated block behind a goal or in a corner, with a standing section at grounds that retain terracing. Union supporters will generally take the standing option where one exists. |
| Access requirements | No fan card is needed for standard Bundesliga away fixtures, though Union's own allocations are distributed to members first and reach open sale rarely. Resale is the practical route for the popular trips. |
| Transport | Many German match tickets include regional public transport on the day, though the scheme varies by federal state. From Berlin most away fixtures are four hours or more, so check whether an overnight beats a same-day return. |
| Timing on the day | Away sections open earlier and empty later than home stands, and visiting supporters can be held inside for 15 to 30 minutes after high-profile fixtures. Build that into any train booked for the same evening. |
At a ground with no upper tier and only 22,012 places, every position is close to the pitch. The decision is about whether you want to stand and how much intensity you want around you.
| Priority | Best Option | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Best atmosphere | Sektor 2, the Waldseite | The ultras' terrace behind the goal with the forest immediately behind it. Everything you have heard about this club happens here, and it costs around €17. |
| Best view | Sektor 1, main stand central | The only seated stand, along the touchline, covered and with the cleanest line across the full pitch. The premium over a terrace place is significant in relative terms and small in absolute terms. |
| Terrace without the crush | Sektor 3, far end | The Gegengerade terrace at the end furthest from the Waldseite. Standing, atmospheric and noticeably less packed than the ultras' section. |
| First visit with children | Sektor 1 seated | Seated, covered and away from the terraces. In a ground this size nobody is far from the pitch, so the compromise costs you very little. |
| Most obtainable | Sektor 4 | The half-end alongside the away section. Quieter than the rest of the terracing and the sector most likely to still have stock when the others have gone. |
The Stadion An der Alten Försterei opened in 1920 in the Wuhlheide, a forest on the south-eastern edge of Berlin, and it is still surrounded by trees on three sides. The address is An der Wuhlheide 263 in Köpenick, roughly forty minutes from the centre of the city and psychologically much further. Nothing about the approach resembles arriving at a modern Bundesliga ground.
What happened in 2008 and 2009 is the reason this club is written about the way it is. The stadium needed rebuilding and Union could not afford contractors, so more than 2,300 supporters did the work themselves, clearing the old terracing and laying the new one over roughly two seasons while the team played at the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark. The ground reopened on 8 July 2009. The total renovation programme through to 2013 cost around €17 million, a fraction of what the same work would have cost commercially.
Capacity is 22,012, of which 18,395 are standing and 3,617 are seated. That is 83 percent terracing, comfortably the highest proportion in the Bundesliga and one of the highest in European top-flight football. It is also why Union could not host Champions League football here in 2023 and played those matches at the Olympiastadion instead, because UEFA requires an all-seated configuration and converting this ground would have left barely ten thousand places.
The five sectors run in a numbered ring: Sektor 1 is the seated main stand along one touchline, Sektor 2 the Waldseite terrace behind one goal, Sektor 3 the Gegengerade terrace opposite the main stand, Sektor 4 the half-end alongside it and Sektor 5 the away section. Bags larger than A4 are refused and a bag drop operates between Sektors 1 and 2. Beer is sold in the stands with a €2 cup deposit and it tends to travel through the air when Union score.
Getting there is simple enough once you accept the distance. S Köpenick is about ten minutes on foot from the ground, and trams stop at An der Wuhlheide directly behind the main stand. There is almost no parking near the stadium and the club actively discourages driving, which is also the reason the rebuild was scaled back: Köpenick's transport network cannot move 40,500 people, so the approved design settles at 34,500 instead.
That rebuild is the context for everything this season. Construction starts after the final home fixture in the existing ground in May 2027, Union play 2027/28 at the Olympiastadion and they return for the first home match of 2028/29 to a stadium of 34,500 with the lower tier still entirely standing. Ticket prices across all categories have risen by one to two euros to help fund it.
One matchday custom is worth knowing about even if you cannot attend it. Every December since 2003 the club has held a Weihnachtssingen, a Christmas carol service in the stadium by candlelight. It began with 89 people. By 2015 it was drawing 28,500, which is more than the ground holds for football, and it is now one of the events that defines this club to people who have never seen them play.
Hospitality at Union is limited by physics. There is one seated stand holding 3,617 people and no upper tier anywhere in the ground, so the corporate provision is modest by Bundesliga standards and there is no equivalent of the box counts you find at Stuttgart or Leipzig. What exists sits within or immediately behind the main stand.
The case for it is availability as much as comfort. Hospitality packages are one of the few routes into this stadium that do not depend on a member releasing a place, which for a corporate group or a one-off visit can matter more than the catering does. For a supporter who wants the actual Alte Försterei experience, a terrace place at a fifth of the cost is the better purchase and nobody in Köpenick would suggest otherwise.
| Package | What It Includes | Typical Price Range (GBP) |
|---|---|---|
| Business seat | Seated main stand place with lounge access before and after the match, catering and a separate entrance. | £180 – £300 per person |
| Business seat, high-demand fixture | The same product for the visits of Bayern, Dortmund or Schalke, when demand and pricing both step up sharply. | £260 – £420 per person |
| Lounge package | Lounge entry with a main stand ticket, buffet and bar, at a lower entry point than the full business tier. | £140 – £220 per person |
| Group hire | Reserved space for a party with catering arranged to requirements. Limited availability given the size of the stand. | Quoted per fixture and party size |
| Matchday catering upgrade | Pre-match food and drink attached to a standard seated ticket where offered. | £90 – £150 per person |
Hospitality ranges reflect typical package and resale pricing and may change with fixture category and availability.
The sequence below takes a few minutes and removes most of the ways a resale purchase goes wrong. At this ground the step that matters most is the third one, because standing and seated are genuinely different products here rather than a matter of preference.
Step1
Open the exact fixture
Use the home and away lists at the bottom of this page to reach the match you want. Each fixture has its own page with its own listings, so you are seeing supply for that date rather than for the club in general.
Step2
Have your account ready first
You can create an account before or during checkout. Doing it in advance matters more here than at any other Bundesliga ground, because listings for a 22,012-capacity stadium do not sit around.
Step3
Decide standing or seated before anything else
18,395 of the 22,012 places are terracing and only 3,617 are seats. If you need to sit you are competing for a small fraction of the ground, so filter for it first rather than assuming it will be available later.
Step4
Filter by quantity next
If you need three or four places together, set that filter before sorting by price. Standing tickets admit you to a sector rather than to a position, so a group in the same sector can still stand together provided you arrive at the same time.
Step5
Read the listing notes properly
The notes state the delivery method, the expected timing, whether the ticket carries a name and which sector it admits you to. Two listings at the same price can be completely different experiences depending on whether they are Sektor 2 or Sektor 4.
Step6
Compare on the checkout total
The final figure includes any service and delivery charges, so judge listings on that rather than the headline. A slightly dearer listing with a faster and more certain delivery route is usually the better purchase.
Step7
Pay and confirm
Enter your payment details on the encrypted checkout page and confirm the order. An order reference and confirmation email arrive immediately, and the 150% guarantee applies from that moment rather than from delivery.
Step8
Follow it through to delivery
Use track order with your reference to see where the ticket is. German clubs commonly release digital tickets in the final week before kick-off, so a quiet stretch after purchase is routine rather than a warning sign.
After that the work is logistical. Plan the S-Bahn out to Köpenick with time to spare, travel with nothing bigger than a small bag and arrive at least an hour early if you have a terrace place.
Union Berlin tickets are difficult across the whole fixture list rather than for a handful of marquee dates, which is what a 22,012-capacity ground and 71,967 members produce. Some categories are harder still.
| Fixture Type | Why It Moves Fast |
|---|---|
| Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund | The two largest travelling supports in Germany visiting the smallest ground in the division. Away allocations here are limited by capacity, which pushes overflow demand into home sectors and exhausts them. |
| Schalke's return | Back in the top flight after three seasons away with a following that could fill this stadium several times over. The away sector allocation will be a fraction of what they want. |
| Waldseite and Gegengerade terraces | 18,395 standing places at around €17 are the lowest-priced and most sought-after inventory in the building. They clear first for every fixture regardless of opponent. |
| December fixtures | The Weihnachtssingen has made the Alte Försterei a December destination in its own right, and league fixtures either side of it draw visitors who are combining the two. |
| The final fixtures of the season | The last home match at this version of the ground falls in May 2027, and the closing rounds of this campaign are the last chance to see the stadium in normal use before the rebuild schedule takes over. |
German football has moved almost entirely to digital delivery and Union are no exception, though resale listings cover several formats depending on how the original ticket was issued. The listing notes tell you which applies before you commit.
Whichever applies, read the notes before you commit. They set out the method, the expected timing and any identification requirement, and they are the difference between walking straight in and standing outside a sold-out stadium.
Gates open two hours before kick-off. If you have a terrace place this is not advice, it is the whole mechanism, because standing tickets admit you to a sector rather than to a position and the good ground goes to whoever walks in first. An hour before kick-off is the minimum if you want somewhere with a clear view and room to move.
There is a second reason specific to this ground. The Alte Försterei sits in a forest forty minutes from central Berlin, the S-Bahn out to Köpenick runs full in the last half hour, and there is no plan B if you miss it. The walk from the station takes about ten minutes and the tram to An der Wuhlheide stops behind the main stand.
Standard Bundesliga fixtures do not require photographic identification. Name-bound tickets exist for certain categories and for particular fixtures, in which case the listing will state the requirement clearly and you should carry the document named on it.
Entry accepts both printed tickets and app-based passes. Charge your phone, add the pass to your wallet before you leave the city centre rather than at the gate and screenshot the barcode as insurance. If you are arriving as a group for a terrace sector, agree to travel together rather than meeting inside, because you cannot reserve a spot for anyone.
Bags larger than A4 format are refused. Unusually for a German ground, Union operate a bag drop between Sektors 1 and 2, which solves the problem that a stadium in a forest offers no lockers, no station facilities and nowhere obvious to leave anything. Use it rather than relying on finding an alternative.
Prohibited items follow the standard German list: bottles, cans, flares, poles, professional camera equipment and anything usable as a projectile. Beer is sold in the stands with a €2 deposit on the cup, and the cups are returnable at the same points.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | 1. FC Union Berlin e.V. |
| Founded | 20 January 1966, with roots to FC Olympia Oberschöneweide in 1906 |
| Nicknames | Eiserne Union (Iron Union), Die Eisernen |
| Stadium | Stadion An der Alten Försterei, capacity 22,012 including 18,395 standing places |
| Rebuilt capacity from 2028/29 | 34,500, with the lower tier remaining entirely standing |
| Head coach | Mauro Lustrinelli, appointed 21 May 2026 |
| Captain | Christopher Trimmel, with Rani Khedira as vice-captain |
| League | Bundesliga |
| Members | 71,967 as of 31 March 2026 |
Union Berlin spent fifty-three years outside the top flight of German football and then reached the Champions League four years after arriving in it. The intervening history involves a divided city, a state security service, a blood donation campaign and a stadium rebuilt by hand, which is why this club is written about in terms that would sound absurd applied to anyone else.
The pre-war club from Oberschöneweide was a genuine force, reaching two German championship finals in the 1920s, and the ground in the Wuhlheide has been in use since 1920. What broke the continuity was the division of the city, which left the club on the eastern side while a parallel organisation continued in the West. The 1. FC Union Berlin founded in January 1966 is the East Berlin successor and the club that plays today.
Union's standing in East Germany was built on what they were not. BFC Dynamo were the club of the Ministry for State Security and won ten league titles in a row from 1979 in circumstances that supporters across the GDR regarded as engineered. Union, a works club from an industrial district with no such patronage, became the place people went if they wanted to express that view without saying it out loud. The cup win of 1968 is the club's only major trophy and it is not the reason anyone remembers this period.
Reunification nearly finished this club. Licence applications were refused, money ran out repeatedly and Union spent the 1990s in the third tier and below. The 2001 cup final is the exception: a second-division side reaching the Olympiastadion, losing 2-0 to a Schalke team that would come within seconds of the Bundesliga title a week later and qualifying for Europe as a result.
The two events that defined the club's modern identity both involved supporters paying for it directly. In 2004, facing another financial crisis, fans organised a campaign to donate blood and hand the payments to the club. Four years later, unable to afford contractors for a stadium rebuild, more than 2,300 of them did the work themselves across two seasons. Neither is a marketing story. Both are documented, and both explain why the phrase Eiserne Union carries the weight it does here.
Urs Fischer arrived in 2018 and took a club that had never played in the Bundesliga to the Champions League inside five years. Promotion came through the play-off against Stuttgart in 2019, survival followed and then seventh, fifth and fourth in successive seasons with a wage bill nowhere near the clubs around them. Fourth place in 2022/23 remains the highest finish in the club's history.
What followed was the correction. The Champions League group with Real Madrid, Napoli and Braga produced two points from six matches, played at the Olympiastadion because the Alte Försterei cannot be configured to UEFA's all-seated requirement, and a nine-match Bundesliga losing run ran alongside it. Fischer left in November 2023 and four more coaches followed within thirty months. Eleventh on 39 points last season, under Steffen Baumgart and then Marie-Louise Eta as interim, was the first sign of the floor being found.
A club whose identity rests on collective effort produces an unusual list of significant figures. Two of the entries below are not individuals at all, which is accurate rather than sentimental.
| Legend | Role | Contribution | Milestones |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urs Fischer | Head coach, 2018 to November 2023 | Took a second-division club into the Bundesliga through the 2019 play-off and then into the Champions League within four more seasons, finishing seventh, fifth and fourth in consecutive campaigns with one of the smallest budgets in the division. Left in November 2023 with the club's entire modern reputation built on his five years. | Promotion 2019, three European qualifications, fourth place in 2022/23 |
| Christopher Trimmel | Defender, from 2014 | Joined in the 2. Bundesliga and has captained the club through promotion, three European campaigns and the Champions League, into a thirteenth season. The one continuous thread running from the second division to the present squad. | Club captain since 2016, present for every step of the rise |
| The 2,300 volunteers | Supporters, 2008 to 2009 | Rebuilt the terracing at the Alte Försterei by hand across two seasons when the club could not afford contractors, while the team played elsewhere. The ground that reopened on 8 July 2009 is the one still standing, and it is the reason the rebuild now being planned carries the weight it does. | The stadium itself, reopened July 2009 |
| Karim Benyamina | Forward, 2005 to 2013 | The club's all-time leading scorer with 87 goals across eight years spanning the third tier and the second, in the period when Union were rebuilding from near-collapse. Scored through the 3. Liga title season of 2008/09 and the promotion that followed. | Club record goalscorer with 87 goals |
| Dirk Zingler | President, from 2004 | Took over during the financial crisis that produced the blood donation campaign and has run the club since, through two promotions, the stadium rebuild and the negotiations that produced the approved 34,500-capacity design. Publicly accepted a smaller ground than he wanted rather than force the transport question. | Twenty-two years as president, two promotions, two stadium projects |
| The blood donors of 2004 | Supporters, 2004 | Organised a campaign to give blood and hand the payments to the club during a financial crisis that threatened its licence. It raised a modest sum and an enormous amount of what the club now trades on, and it is the origin of most of what outsiders find remarkable about this support. | Bluten für Union, 2004 |
| Marie-Louise Eta | Assistant and interim head coach, from 2023 | Became the first woman to work as a coach on a Bundesliga bench when she joined the staff in 2023, and took interim charge of the first team in April 2026 following Steffen Baumgart's departure. Steadied a side that finished eleventh, the club's best placing since Europe. | First female coach on a Bundesliga bench, interim head coach 2026 |
The trophy cabinet at Union is close to empty and the club is entirely open about it. One East German cup in 1968, a lost DFB-Pokal final in 2001, a third-division title in 2009 and a promotion in 2019. Set against that: fourth in the Bundesliga, a Champions League campaign and a membership of nearly 72,000 in a ground that holds 22,012.
| Competition | Titles |
|---|---|
| Bundesliga | 0 (best finish: fourth, 2022/23) |
| DFB-Pokal | 0 (runners-up 2000/01) |
| FDGB-Pokal (East German Cup) | 1 (1967/68) |
| DDR-Oberliga | 0 |
| 3. Liga | 1 (2008/09) |
| 2. Bundesliga | 0 (promoted via play-off, 2018/19) |
| UEFA Champions League | 0 (group stage, 2023/24) |
| UEFA Europa League and Conference League | 0 (knockout rounds reached in 2022/23) |
The 1968 cup is worth a note of its own. It was won in a state where the security service ran a rival club that would go on to take ten consecutive league titles, and it remains the only major honour a club with this membership has ever collected. That gap between what Union have won and what Union command is the whole point of them.
Union's rivalries are unusual because two of the three are not about football results at all. One is a city rivalry, one is a legacy of the East German state and one is an argument about what a football club is for.
The Berlin derby, a fixture defined for decades by the Wall that separated the two clubs. Hertha are the West Berlin institution with the Olympiastadion and the larger history; Union are the East Berlin club from Köpenick with the terraces. In 1990, days after the border opened, the two sets of supporters played a friendship match that drew more than 50,000 people, and the relationship curdled into hostility only once they were competing in the same league. Union's promotion in 2019 and the years of finishing above Hertha that followed have inverted a hierarchy that stood for thirty years. Neither set of supporters treats a meeting as routine.
The GDR rivalry and the one with the sharpest edge behind it. BFC Dynamo were the club of the Ministry for State Security and won ten consecutive East German titles from 1979 in circumstances that supporters across the country regarded as arranged. Union, with no such backing, became the alternative by default. The two clubs have spent the past three decades in different divisions, so meetings are rare and heavily policed when they happen, but the historical grievance has not softened with time.
A modern rivalry about ownership rather than geography. Union are a members-owned club from a working-class district whose supporters rebuilt their own stadium; Leipzig were founded in 2009 by purchasing a fifth-division licence and have 23 voting members. Both are eastern clubs, both were nowhere fifteen years ago and they took opposite routes to the same division. The atmosphere at these fixtures has nothing to do with proximity and everything to do with what each side believes the other represents.
The 2023/24 Champions League group produced the largest occasion in the club's history and very nearly its finest result. Union took a point off nobody in the group but came closest at the Bernabéu, where they held out until deep into stoppage time before Jude Bellingham settled it. The home fixtures were played at the Olympiastadion rather than the Alte Försterei, because UEFA requires an all-seated configuration and converting the terraces would have cut the ground to barely ten thousand. Two points from six matches was the return, and nobody in Köpenick regards the campaign as a failure.
Not a European opponent, but the club that ended Union's only appearance in a German cup final. Schalke won 2-0 at the Olympiastadion on 26 May 2001 against a Union side then in the second division, and went on to spend four minutes believing they had won the Bundesliga before Bayern equalised in Hamburg. Union's consolation was a UEFA Cup place, which gave them European football eighteen years before they reached the Bundesliga. Schalke's return to the top flight this season makes the fixture live again.
| Season | Summary |
|---|---|
| 2021/22 | Fifth on 57 points under Urs Fischer and qualification for the Europa League, in what was then the club's highest Bundesliga finish. A side assembled on a modest budget and organised meticulously finished above Köln, Leipzig and Leverkusen's usual company, and the Alte Försterei sold out every week with a membership already far exceeding the ground. |
| 2022/23 | Fourth on 62 points, the highest finish in the club's history, bringing a first Champions League qualification. Union led the Bundesliga outright in the autumn, which no promoted club of this size had done in living memory, and held a European place through to the final weeks. The Europa League campaign reached the knockout rounds before ending. |
| 2023/24 | Fifteenth on 33 points after the hardest season since promotion. A nine-match losing run from late August to early November coincided with a Champions League group containing Real Madrid, Napoli and Braga that yielded two points from six games. Fischer left in November and three more coaches took charge before May. Survival was secured with nothing to spare. |
| 2024/25 | Thirteenth on 40 points, a season of consolidation rather than recovery. Steffen Baumgart arrived in December to steady a side that had not recovered its shape since the European campaign, and the improvement was measured in points rather than in performances. The DFB-Pokal produced nothing of note. |
| 2025/26 | Eleventh on 39 points, the highest placing since Europe, from ten wins, nine draws and fifteen defeats. The DFB-Pokal ended in the round of sixteen with a 3-2 defeat in December. Baumgart departed in April with Marie-Louise Eta taking interim charge, and Mauro Lustrinelli was appointed on 21 May having just won the Swiss title with newly promoted Thun. |
Lustrinelli inherits a squad built for the Bundesliga's lower reaches rather than for Europe, with a spine that has been together through the difficult years. Christopher Trimmel captains into a thirteenth season, Rani Khedira is vice-captain after arriving from Augsburg while Frederik Rønnow has been first choice in goal since 2021. Values below are approximate market valuations converted to pounds and shift with form, age and contract length.
| No. | Player | Position | Value (£) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Frederik Rønnow | Goalkeeper | 4.0m |
| 3 | Andrik Markgraf | Defender | 2.5m |
| 4 | Zeno Van Den Bosch | Defender | 6.0m |
| 5 | Marvin Friedrich | Defender | 2.5m |
| 6 | Aljoscha Kemlein | Midfielder | 4.5m |
| 7 | Oliver Burke | Forward | 3.5m |
| 8 | Rani Khedira (vice-captain) | Midfielder | 2.5m |
| 9 | Livan Burcu | Forward | 5.0m |
| 10 | Ilyas Ansah | Forward | 6.5m |
| 11 | Jeong Woo-yeong | Midfielder | 7.0m |
| 13 | András Schäfer | Midfielder | 5.5m |
| 14 | Leopold Querfeld | Defender | 9.0m |
| 15 | Tom Rothe | Defender | 8.0m |
| 18 | Josip Juranović | Defender | 7.0m |
| 19 | Janik Haberer | Midfielder | 4.0m |
| 21 | Tim Skarke | Midfielder | 2.0m |
| 23 | Andrej Ilić | Forward | 6.0m |
| 24 | Robert Skov | Midfielder | 2.5m |
| 27 | Marin Ljubičić | Forward | 7.5m |
| 28 | Christopher Trimmel (captain) | Defender | 0.5m |
| 29 | Emmanuel Latte Lath (on loan) | Forward | 11.0m |
| 31 | Matheo Raab | Goalkeeper | 2.5m |
| 34 | Stanley Nsoki | Defender | 5.0m |
| 39 | Derrick Köhn | Defender | 4.5m |
Market values are approximate, drawn from public valuation data and rounded. They indicate squad structure rather than transfer fees paid or received.
The final home fixture in the current ground is scheduled for May 2027, after which the rebuild begins and Union play the 2027/28 season at the Olympiastadion. They return for the first home match of 2028/29 to a stadium of 34,500.
The club had 71,967 members on 31 March 2026 and the stadium holds 22,012, which is more than three members for every place. Season card holders and members buy first, so general sale receives very little for most fixtures.
18,395 of the 22,012 places are terracing and only 3,617 are seats, which is around 83 percent standing and the highest proportion in the Bundesliga. If you specifically want to sit, filter for it early rather than assuming it will be there later.
Take the S-Bahn to S Köpenick, which leaves about a ten-minute walk, or a tram to the An der Wuhlheide stop directly behind the main stand. Allow around forty minutes from the city centre and travel early, because services run full in the last half hour.
Nothing larger than A4 format, though unusually there is a bag drop between Sektors 1 and 2 if you arrive with more. Beer is sold in the stands with a two-euro deposit on the cup, refundable at the same points.
1BoxOffice is a verified marketplace that has been connecting supporters with live event seats since 2006, and every confirmed order carries a 150% money-back guarantee. If you want to stand on a terrace that supporters built with their own hands, this is the last full season to do it before the rebuild, so compare the listings above and secure your place while the sector you want still has stock.
Sources: 1. FC Union Berlin official club website (fc-union-berlin.de) for membership figures, coaching appointments and stadium information, the Deutsche Fußball Liga and Bundesliga.
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