{"id":556752,"date":"2020-07-05T05:18:31","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T09:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=556752"},"modified":"2020-07-05T05:18:31","modified_gmt":"2020-07-05T09:18:31","slug":"christian-gentner-extends-contract-at-1-fc-union-berlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/07\/05\/christian-gentner-extends-contract-at-1-fc-union-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Gentner Extends Contract at 1.FC Union Berlin\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/search\/Union+berlin\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1. FC Union Berlin<\/a> have awarded midfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/a4f94a0d\/Christian-Gentner\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Christian Gentner<\/a> with a new deal. The 34-year-old played a pivotal role as Union ended their debut <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2020\/07\/02\/1-fc-union-berlin-bundesliga-season-review-part-one-results\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bundesliga season in 11th place.<\/a><\/p>\n<div align=\"left\">\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">Christian Gentner Extends Contract at 1.FC Union Berlin<\/h2>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Midfield Maestro<\/h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The midfielder joined <em>Die Eisernen<\/em> at the start of the season after joining from VfB Stuttgart. Ironically, the 34-year-old played for Stuttgart against Union during the relegation promotion playoff, which the Berlin club progressed in.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">This season, the experienced midfielder has been a key part of the clubs&#8217; success. He has scored four goals and provided three assists from 34 outings this campaign. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2020\/02\/18\/watching-union-berlin-is-a-must-when-in-the-capital\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">One of which was a wonder striker in their home game against Bayer Leverkusen<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">What Was Said<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div align=\"left\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Speaking to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fc-union-berlin.de\/en\/union-live\/latest-news\/professional\/Christian-Gentner-will-stay-at-Union-Berlin-483z\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">clubs&#8217; official website, Gentner said<\/a>: &#8220;I&#8217;ve felt very quickly at home here in Berlin and was welcomed with open arms at Union.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;As a team, we were strong this season and developed enormously. It was clear to me that I want to continue to play football professionally and I&#8217;m happy that I can continue to do so for 1. FC Union Berlin.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Director of Professional Football at 1. FC Union Berlin, Oliver Ruhnert, added: &#8220;Christian Gentner has assumed responsibility from the very beginning and passed on his enormous experience to his team-mates.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;With his achievements and his personality, he has played an enormously important role in our team both on and off the pitch in the past season, which is why we are very pleased to have him in our ranks in the new season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div align=\"left\">\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Gentner Career<\/h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Despite a three year spell at VfL Wolfsburg towards the end of last decade, Gentner had spent his entire career at Stuttgart before moving to Berlin. He has also won the Bundesliga on two separate occasions.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">He was part of the <i>Die Roten<\/i> side that were relegated from the Bundesliga in 2016\/17 but managed to return to the top flight at the first attempt.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">However, following their most recent demise, the midfielder opted for a move elsewhere. Berlin was his destination and Union the club. He has had a successful first season in the capital, and the experienced midfielder will be looking to establish <em>Die Eisernen<\/em> as a top-flight club for a second successive season.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Main Photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a id=\"ImlevX6TTFRtnpVCiK_GGg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1200875512\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ImlevX6TTFRtnpVCiK_GGg',sig:'zneDyVM_iiX06YiDv2ekw4gpDBV8dr9-zAtj5h_OFI0=',w:'594px',h:'401px',items:'1200875512',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1. FC Union Berlin have awarded midfielder Christian Gentner with a new deal. The 34-year-old played a pivotal role as Union ended their debut Bundesliga season in 11th place. Christian Gentner Extends Contract at 1.FC Union Berlin Midfield Maestro The midfielder joined Die Eisernen at the start of the season after joining from VfB Stuttgart. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":556768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2,30,28],"tags":[5524,51,5632,5279,1179,136],"class_list":["post-556752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bundesliga","category-featured","category-news","category-transfers","tag-1-fc-union-berlin","tag-bundesliga","tag-christian-gentner","tag-contract-news","tag-transfer-news","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}