Union Berlin’s Jordan Pefok thundered in an 84th minute goal to secure a 2-1 home victory over Mainz on Saturday and send them top of the Bundesliga with their fourth straight league win.
Union moved to 39 points from 19 games, two ahead of Bayern Munich who can reclaim top spot with a win at VfL Wolfsburg on Sunday. Third-placed Borussia Dortmund are also on 37 points after thrashing Freiburg 5-1.
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Union, unbeaten at home this season, have now recorded two more league victories than Bayern but for Urs Fischer’s players any title talk was irrelevant, with the team more focused on wanting to secure 40 points to make sure they stay up.
“We are enjoying the momentary snapshot but it is still a long, long way,” said Union captain Christopher Trimmel. “We want to keep staying up there in the top spots there but we know we have to keep improving if we want to do that.”
“There are a lot of good teams out there who have championship aspirations,” he added.
“Once we reach that goal [40 points] we will sit down and define new goals. We still have a lot of tough matches ahead of us.”
The hosts got off to a strong start with Jerome Roussillon and Rani Khedira coming close before Kevin Behrens slotted in after 32 minutes for a deserved lead.
Mainz had few chances in the game but they did get a 78th minute penalty for handball thanks to a VAR review and substitute Marcus Ingvartsen netted the equaliser.
It then took Union six minutes to carve out the winner, with Jordan rifling in from close range after Mainz failed to clear a cross, to keep their sensational campaign going.
