Report: Vidi rescue a point despite being a man down

With Loic Nego's goal we picked up a point with ten men at the New Hidegkuti Nándor Stadium.
 

In the final match of the 27th round of the OTP Bank Liga on Sunday at 17:00, MTK hosted our team in the New Hidegkuti Nándor Stadium. This time, Michael Boris sent out the eleven of Kovács D. - Bese, Rus, Stopira - Nego, Fiola, Makarenko, Hangya - Kodro, Funsho - Nikolic into battle from the first minute, leaving only Peter Zulj, who was not available due to suspension, out of the starting line-up from the winning team against Kisvárda.

At the start of the match, Mijatovic made a fine save from Nikolic coming out of his goal, and he was on hand to deal with Funsho's close range effort. At the other end, Futács and Kovácsréti were active, but the blue and white team could not create any major danger.

The game continued and became more active. In the 27th minute Funsho had a good chance, then after the counter attack Dániel Kovács had to make three saves, but as it turned out the home counter attack started with it being offside. In the 39th minute, Niko's 17-metre shot missed the goal, and in extra time of the first half, Kovácsréti's shot was bravely pushed away by Dániel Kovács - and in between we scored a disallowed goal (the ball bounced off Kodro's hand into the MTK goal), so the first half ended scoreless.

The second half continued without substitutions and in the 51st minute, Mezei's free kick gave the home team the lead (1-0). A quarter of an hour later, Funsho's shot was blocked by the home full-back and Nego fired over the bar. In the 70th minute three substitutions were made, with Petryak, Dárdai and Rúben Pinto replacing Bese, Kodro and Makarenko. In the 79th minute, after a lengthy VAR review, Attila Fiola received a red card instead of a yellow card, before that two shots by Vancsa were saved by Dániel Kovács.

Our team did not give up even when we were down to ten men, in fact! In the 84th minute, after Dárdai's free kick, the ball fell to Nego, who was unmarked in the middle, from János Szépe's head, and our national team player made no mistake from close range (1-1)! Little did we know at the time that, including injury time, there was still almost a quarter of an hour to go. In this period, with ten men, we mobilised a lot of energy to get the three points. We got in front of the MTK goal several times, but we couldn't create any real danger, and Ramadani came up with a shot for the home side, which was saved by Kovács. In the 98th minute, Stopira made an important save from Zalán Vancsa's dribble, and after a corner and another VAR review, the game ended with us taking a point at Hungária körút.

Author: David Rechnitzer

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