“Micha, mein Micha, and everything hurt so much.” This is how Nina Hagen once sang about a useless guy who forgot the color film and destroyed a nice trip to Hiddensee. And when Nina later found out about it, “the tears rolled hot.”
So it was a bit on Sunday morning in Köpenick, when the long and largely feared message among Union fans was finally in black and white: Michael Parensen, the “eternal Micha”, ended his career as a professional and was therefore no longer a game for him 1. Deny FC Union Berlin.
You can find all developments around 1. FC Union in our own news blog.]
“Michael has really become a legend here in recent years. He is a union through and through, ”said Oliver Ruhnert, Union managing director of sport, on Sunday. He will stay that way, because the club will now retain the 34-year-old in a different role. According to Ruhnert, he now has time to “get to know all departments first.”
Still, it was a somewhat sad ending for such a popular club legend. Because of the current situation, Parensen was not adopted in front of the raging backdrop as expected, but in a small internal round on Saturday evening, as one of a total of eight players who left the Union at the end of the season. “It’s very bitter for the boys. I am incredibly sorry for them because they deserve to be celebrated here, ”said Ruhnert.
They would have cheered Parensen like no other. Unlike other fan favorites like Sebastian Polter or Rafal Gikiewicz, he did not immediately and explosively mature into a Union legend, but slowly but steadily over the years. In the 2008/09 season he moved from Cologne to Köpenick, and it was not foreseeable that he would become an identification figure.
Parensen played 249 competitive games for Union
As Union became more and more successful in the years that followed, Parensen became one of the few constants for the association. It was not for nothing that he became a crowdsurfer at the promotion party last year. He is now the only player who has represented the club in three divisions.
He also left his mark off the field. He has been a member of the association for a long time, and often found the right balance between the interests of fans and professionals. This is also why the followers valued him so much and hoped until the end that he would stay another year. He only emphasized again a few months ago that he would have loved to continue playing.
As in the case of Gikiewicz, the decision of the club management is completely understandable. “At some point the point will come,” Oliver Ruhnert sighed. After all, for him it is always a question of “how we can develop the squad.” The Union manager is now faced with further difficult decisions, because there is likely to be a small change this summer.
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Specifically, both Gikiewicz’s successor and the future must be clarified by several other players whose contracts expire at the end of this month. Ruhnert, in particular, would be reluctant to part with Christian Gentner. The manager could also get a headache up front if other clubs were interested in striker Sebastian Andersson. The transfer period runs until October, but Ruhnert wants to “form a squad relatively early so that the coach can form a team”.
In this team, at least Michael Parensen will no longer play a role after 249 competitive appearances for Union. As it says in the version of the Hagen song that was re-written for him: “You played for us so often, oh Michael!” But not now, and it hurts a lot of people.
