Union Berlin\u2019s 1-0 victory over Freiburg on Sunday night had many important moments, but none were bigger than the performance of goalkeeper Matheo Raab.<\/p>\n
Making his Bundesliga debut, Raab produced a series of crucial saves and finished the match despite suffering a painful hand injury late on. His final stop in the closing minutes helped preserve Union\u2019s narrow lead and ultimately secure all three points.<\/p>\n
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After the match, Raab admitted the injury did not look encouraging: \u201cRegarding my hand injury, it doesn\u2019t look that good,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve had serious problems with this hand before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the pain, the goalkeeper had no intention of leaving the pitch during the decisive final moments: \u201cI felt extreme pain, but I wanted to finish the last minutes,\u201d Raab explained.<\/p>\n
One of those moments included a spectacular late save that kept Freiburg from equalising – a moment the goalkeeper himself looked back on with pride. \u201cThe save at the end looks nice,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cI\u2019m very happy about my Bundesliga debut. Forget the hand, forget the injury – I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Union head coach Steffen Baumgart was full of praise for his goalkeeper after the match and highlighted the resilience Raab has shown throughout his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you take a closer look at Matheo, you know he has had many setbacks in his career,\u201d Baumgart said. \u201cWhether as number two or number one, he gives our team a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Baumgart, Raab\u2019s determination to continue despite injury perfectly summed up his character: \u201cToday, despite the injury, he showed his character and made really great saves,\u201d the Union coach said.<\/p>\n
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In fact, Baumgart had no doubt about who the decisive player on the pitch had been: \u201cHe was our matchwinner today.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a night when Union Berlin needed resilience and composure to protect their slender lead, Raab delivered both – pain and all – to cap a memorable Bundesliga debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Union Berlin\u2019s 1-0 victory over Freiburg on Sunday night had many important moments, but none were bigger than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,2355,5664,190,23098,23097,23099,20698,2353],"class_list":{"0":"post-40848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-bundesliga","10":"tag-freiburg","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-hand-injury","13":"tag-matheo-raab","14":"tag-raab","15":"tag-steffen-baumgart","16":"tag-union-berlin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116236969822597099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}