EXCLUSIVE: Union Berlin striker Kaufmann on the club's crisis & first-team opportunities

This season, the Union Berlin has not only experienced the culmination of years of hard work with participation in the Champions League - despite having the Bundesliga's smallest budget by far - but also a downturn of immense dimensions that few could have imagined when the club finished fourth in the league last season.

In the Champions League, they managed to compete with Real Madrid in two close games and drew 1-1 away to Napoli at the Diego Maradona Stadium.

But in the domestic league, Union have not been able to get things going at all, which was emphasised this past weekend when they lost 3-0 to Bochum and dropped to a disappointing 15th place with a depressing for-and-against score of 15:31.

This has obviously affected the mood at the club, says young striker Mikkel Kaufmann, who joined the club from FC Copenhagen last summer after two loan spells at Hamburger SV and Karlsruhe.

"It's been a really tough period to get through. There have been a lot of days where it has been very heavy in training and people have been hanging their heads, which is quite natural," says Kaufmann in conversation with Flashscore.

"I really think we've had to dig deep mentally because we've had a lot of crisis meetings where we've had to find solutions to all the negative things that have happened on the pitch.

"I think our quality in the team is so great that we shouldn't have run into such a period, and that's why it's been extra frustrating."

The Northern Jutland native has really come into his own at Union Berlin, where he has had to compete for places in attack with experienced and well-established strikers such as Kevin Behrens, Kevin Volland, Sheraldo Becker and David Datro Fofana.

"It's really hard to make your mark in that company because you have to get up really early to keep up with some of those guys."

"It's been a huge jump, and the jump was also much bigger than I expected. The pace and intensity has been much higher than I was used to in Karlsruhe and I'm being challenged on a physical and technical level every day, which has also meant that I think I've developed a lot lately," says Kaufmann.

With the fierce competition for attacking positions at Union Berlin, there have only been scattered substitute appearances so far this season for Kaufmann. However, some light was found in the darkness for him about a week ago when he scored his first goal for the club in the victory over Borussia Monchengladbach.

"Obviously, it was good to score and it increased my hopes of getting more chances. The belief that I can be part of the starting line-up has always been there, otherwise, I would never have come to the club.

"The goal showed me that I can make my mark, but it's also a battle I fight every day in training to show how good I am."

Kaufmann will get his next chance to prove his worth in attack when Union Berlin take on FC Koln on Wednesday.