RB Leipzig vs Union Berlin preview: Team news and lineups

February 27, 2024

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13:49

Peter Gulácsi. By Steffen Prößdorf, CC BY-SA 4.0.

With RB Leipzig's Xavi Simons back, Marco Rose looks to beat relegation-battling Union Berlin on Sunday in the Bundesliga to close in on Borussia Dortmund in fourth place.

Overview

Union Berlin have won five of their last six Bundesliga ties against RB Leipzig but lost out earlier in the season in the reverse fixture (3-0).

RB Leipzig are still yet to win in 2024 following the 5-2 defeat last weekend to VfB Stuttgart and are bottom of the form table since matchday sixteen.

On the other hand, Union Berlin have won two of their last four games in the Bundesliga. The last game was a more-than-deserved 1-0 victory at home against Darmstadt with a huge expected goals (xG) tally of over three goals.

Heading into this game, RB Leipzig coach Marco Rose said: "The sun isn't smiling at the moment. We want to end this phase and are working hard to do this."

He also mentioned that the results are evading RB Leipzig at the moment and that Union Berlin are a solid team and played well throughout the Bayern Munich game in which he said they defended with passion and were hard-working.

For Union Berlin, manager Nenad Bjelica will still be unavailable for the match against RB Leipzig as he is serving a ban for the incident he had with Bayern Munich's Leroy Sané.

In his place, assistant coach Marie-Louise Eta will be in charge of "Die Eisern" (the "Iron ones").

RB Leipzig Team News

For Leipzig, Amadou Haidara is on international duty with Mali and will return early next week following their defeat to the Ivory Coast. Apart from him, Mohamed Simakan is serving a one-match suspension for reaching five yellow cards and will be unavailable.

RB Leipzig Predicted Lineup

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Union Berlin Team News

For Union, Josip Juranović will miss the tie due to a muscular injury. Both Diogo Leite and Jérôme Roussillon will be doubts due to illness and a knock.