Report: Victory against Honvéd

Saturday night's league match against Budapest Honvéd was preceded with presentations by István Sallói, the sporting director, who handed over shirts to Ivan Petrjak and Nemanja Nikolic at the MOL Arena Sósto, which was lit up in pink for the campaign to highlight the importance of the fight against breast cancer. The former for the 100th and the latter for the 250th league match. 

Our starting team also ran onto the pitch in pink shirts, with manager Imre Szabics picking Kovács D. - Fiola, Rus, Musiu, Stopira - Dárdai, Nego, Makarenko, Petryak - Kodro and Zivzivadze against Kispest in the 9th round of the OTP Bank Liga. The head coach of the visitors, our former striker and coach Ferenc Horváth, named Krisztián Tamás, the former Vidi player in the starting line-up, while Donát Zsótér and Tomas Tujvel were on the bench.

We had to wait until the fifth minute for our first chance, when Attila Fiola, who was standing out in front of the goal, shot into the side netting from a sharp angle. The next big chance came ten minutes later, when Dárdai's corner was headed wide by Stopira, who was threatening in the middle. A minute later, Bőle Lukács had the first shot from 14 yards for the visitors, but Kovács did not have to intervene, then Nenad Lukic got a good chance at the far post, but he was slowed down when driving the ball and had little power to shoot, leaving our goalkeeper again without much to do. Halfway through the half, a nice attacking move saw Ivan Petryak's powerful shot into the middle of the box unfortunately missed by both Budu Zivzivadze and Kenan Kodro.

In the 24th minute, Norbert Balogh saw his shot from a great position, land in the hands of Kovács, Two minutes later we took the lead! Nego sending a fine ball into the path of Zivzivadze, who cut back and then fired a beautiful curling shot into the top left corner from 10 metres out (1-0)!

With ten minutes left in the first half, Dárdai's centre was flicked over the bar by Kodro as he wrestled with one of the visiting full-backs. There was not much else of note in a first half that stretched to 46 minutes including a minute of extra time, and we went into the break with a one-goal lead.

Neither head coach made any change at the break, and the first chance of the second period went to Norbert Balogh, but Fiola and Dániel Kovács combined to deny the danger. In the 51st minute, Dárdai attempted a shot from 27 yards but missed the target. In the 55th minute, Kodro gave a well-paced pass to Petryak and our Ukrainian winger smashed the ball into the bottom left corner from 14 metres out with a right footed inside shot (2-0)!

In the 60th minute the visitors scored, after a free kick, Batik Bence headed into the net from inside the box (2-1). In the 71st minute Zsótér got into a shooting position, our former player hit the ball over the goal with great power from about 15 meters. A minute later, Funsho, who replaced the injured Petryak, had a good chance as our Nigerian winger passed to Kodro, but the Kispest defenders cleared the ball in the last moment before the shot.

From the corner, Stopira's powerful header was saved by Szappanos, and Zivzivadze slotted the rebound over the top from close range. Eight minutes from time, Zsótér's shot was saved by Fiola. In the 83rd minute, Szappanos was again well placed in the Kispest goal: both Zivzivadze and Kodro's flat shot inside the penalty area were saved by the visitors' keeper. Another two minutes later, Dárdai's 21-metre effort was cut out by a full-back for a corner. In the 90th minute the visitors scored, but fortunately it was ruled offside, and the score remained 2-1, which did not change in the 6 minute extra time, although both teams could have scored, Mezghrani and Nono were in position for the visitors, while we threatened through Dárdai.

We won 2-1 and moved up to fourth place in the table. Our next match will be on Friday 22 October, when we will play Újpest.