Kenan Kodro scored the winning goal against Mezőkövesd.
On Saturday at 19:30 we played Mezőkövesd, 5th in the table, at the MOL Arena Sósto. In the last match of the 2021 season. Manager Imre Szabics went for the eleven of Kovács D. - Fiola, Lüftner, Stopira, Hangya- Petryak, Nego, Makarenko, Dárdai - Kodro, Nikolic, while for Mezőkövesd, among their players was the goalkeeper Árpád Tordai, who was still with Vidi in the spring.
The first action saw our goalkeeper Dániel Kovács, who had to save Besirovic's free kick in the 3rd minute. Six minutes later, Dárdai's dangerous cross was cleared ahead of our strikers, Kodro and Nikolic, and almost immediately on the counter-attack, the second Besirovic-Kovács duel was won by our goalkeeper. In the 19th minute, Petryak's 20-metre attempt was saved by Tordai, then Kovács saved Calcan's effort. Soon afterwards the visiting goalkeeper pulled off a brave save from Dárdai's 13-metre shot. With 30 minutes on the clock, Cseke and Cseri both aimed for the home goal, but the former missed the target and the latter was prevented from scoring by Kovács.
At the end of the first period, the highlight of the first half came in the 42nd minute, Petryak's free kick was flicked on by Stopira to Kodro, and our in-form striker scored his 9th goal of the season with a header (1-0)! Two minutes after the goal, Nikolic came close to scoring his 111th league goal for Vidi, but missed a close range effort and after that, referee Karakó blew for half-time, and we went into the dressing room with a one-goal lead.
Neither manager made a substitution at the break, and the first attempt on goal came three minutes into the second half, when Stopira's header was saved by Tordai. In the 55th minute, Petryak's cross was headed on to Kodro, who headed the ball into the net from inside the box - but the goal celebration was unfortunately premature, as it became clear after a few minutes of VAR and Karakó did not award the goal. In the 62nd minute, Dániel Kovács made two great saves, first from Cseri's 14-metre shot, and then he saved a close range effort from Madarász. Zivzivadze replaced Niko in the 63rd minute and Szendrei replaced Dárdai in the 70th minute.
Between the 70th and 75th minutes Dániel Kovács was at work twice: first Drazic and second Cseke's shot was saved by the Vidi goalkeeper. In the 80th minute, Kovács made perhaps his best save of the game, as Cseri's 25-metre shot was pushed onto the post by Dani. Towards the end of the match Zivzivadze was replaced by Alef, and Mezőkövesd understandably tried to freshen up with strikers, Vutov and Dániel Nagy, but the score remained the same, we won the final match of the year 1-0! It was our team's fifth league win in a row at the MOL Arena Sósto.
The OTP Bank Liga will continue on the 30th January 2022, at 13:00 when we will play at the Pancho Arena in Felcsút as guests of Puskás Akadémia FC.
Szerző: David Rechnitzer