Union Berlin manager Urs Fischer extends contract beyond 2023 | OneFootball

Union Berlin have confirmed they have reached an agreement with manager Urs Fischer and his assistant Markus Hoffmann to extend their stay at the club beyond next summer.

Fischer was appointed in 2018 and guided Die Eisernen to Bundesliga promotion in his first season – the club have maintained top-flight status since then.

They finished eleventh in their first season in the Bundesliga. They followed it up with an impressive seventh-place finish in the 2020/21 campaign, securing a spot in the Europa Conference League.

Union failed to progress from their group after missing out to Slavia Prague by a slender one-point margin. However, they secured a fifth-place finish in the Bundesliga.

Fischer’s side missed out on a place in the Champions League to RB Leipzig by one point and had to settle for a spot in the Europa League. They also reached the semi-finals of the DFB Pokal.

Despite losing their top scorer Taiwo Awoniyi to Nottingham Forest, Union are currently top of the Bundesliga table, two points ahead of Borussia Dortmund and five in front of reigning champions Bayern Munich after seven games.

The club’s hierarchy have been impressed with their progression under the Swiss tactician and have handed him a contract extension.

Union’s president Dirk Zingler said: “Urs Fischer is an excellent coach who, together with the entire coaching team, has led us into the most successful sporting phase in our club’s history.

“Our work together has always been characterised by great mutual respect and trust, and our talks about continuing this relationship proceeded along these lines.

“There was never any question of not continuing our successful cooperation for any of us. I am very pleased that Urs Fischer and Markus Hoffmann will remain Unioners in the coming years.”

Fischer also spoke of how happy he is in Kopenick, saying that he feels like the club is ‘home’,

“The daily work together with the squad, as with the whole team here, achieved through the conditions that the club provides, and all the human interactions with each other, all of these have been important factors for our success in the past four years,” he said.

“I think we can still achieve a lot on this journey together, and I’m looking forward to being part of the club’s continued development.”