football fairy tale
Deniz Undav was sorted out several times. He now ends up in the Premier League via Meppen and Belgium
Deniz Undav will soon be moving from Belgium to the Premiere League.
© Bruno Fahy / Picture Alliance
A year and a half ago, German third-division footballer Deniz Undav moved to Belgian second-division club Royale Union Saint-Gilloise. A fairytale-like ascent developed from this.
What is actually the nicer football fairy tale: that a club that has not played in the first division for 48 years is suddenly in first place as a promoted team with a large margin? Or that a striker who came from Germany via TSV Havelse and SV Meppen has been scoring the most goals in this first Belgian league for months and was therefore awarded a contract in the English Premier League on Monday evening?
At Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, the answer doesn’t really matter, because both questions go back to the 124-year-old traditional club from the Brussels region. The sensational leader of the Jupiler Pro League could not be caught by record champions RSC Anderlecht (1-0) and reigning champions FC Bruges (0-0) in the past few days. Nine points already separate the climber from his pursuers.
Deniz Undav on the wish list of many clubs
Headlines like this could be read last week about the 18-time goalscorer Deniz Undav, born in Achim near Bremen: “Gladbach wants Undav”. “Wolfsburg wants undav”. And “Stefan Kuntz wants to bring Deniz Undav into the Turkish national team”. The latter is still open, but Gladbach and Wolfsburg came too late with the 25-year-old striker. Undav has signed with Brighton & Hove Albion and will move to ninth place in the Premier League in the summer, remaining at Saint-Gilles on loan until then. Both clubs have the same owner, poker player Tony Bloom.
“Sometimes I have to pinch myself,” said Undav of the “district newspaper Syke” about his rise. Because the attacker is what his former coach Torsten Lieberknecht likes to call a “professional on the second chance of education”. At the age of 16 he was sorted out at Werder Bremen, at 21 Eintracht Braunschweig did not offer him a new contract for the 3rd division. After six years at SC Weyhe, TSV Havelse and Eintracht II, Undav switched to SV Meppen in 2018, for whom he scored 17 goals in his second third division season. After that it was clear that he would still make it into professional football in a roundabout way.
Deniz Undav got “proper appreciation”
Many were surprised at the time that he decided in 2020 for Saint-Gilloise, which was still second-class at the time, and not for a German first or second division club. In retrospect, Undav also explains this with his experiences in Bremen and Braunschweig.
“No other club went on the offensive – only Union,” he said. “They gave their all, called my advisor every two days. I noticed: They’re fighting for me, that’s the first time I get real appreciation. I didn’t know that feeling.”
Spectacular development in Belgian league
Meanwhile, the spectacular development of his team has many reasons: a well-rehearsed team, clever transfers. Club owner Bloom recruits players using similar principles to how his company values sports betting: meticulous data analysis. He also delegated talented players such as Japan’s Kaoru Mitoma and Poland’s Kacper Kozlowski from Brighton to Belgium after promotion. Undav will go the opposite way in the summer and fulfill his dream of “one of the five top leagues in Europe”.
Every reason to be happy: Deniz Undav (left) is still playing for Saint-Gilloise, he will soon be playing in the Premier League.
© Bruno Fahy / Picture Alliance
The success of their surprise team also suits Belgian football just as well. Prosecutors will soon indict 57 suspects in a money laundering, fraud and match-fixing scandal uncovered in 2018. Also involved are representatives of the federation, FC Brugge and RSC Anderlecht. “With so much bad news, you sometimes want to believe in fairy tales,” wrote the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” about Royale Union Saint-Gilloise.