So a very quiet start to the season. 6 games, 21 yellow cards, 4 red cards (2 straight, 2 YYR) and 2 penalties! 3 black shirts, 2 red shirts & 1 blue shirt.
Ferencváros v Paks - Referee: Iványi Zoltán (black shirt)
4-0 home win for the top team and a performance that shows why they will be champions yet again this season. Paks did not put up much of a contest granted but I don't think Fradi needed to get out of 1st gear all game. They looked confident, played a fluid passing game and they will be worthy champions at some point in the not too distant future. It's not over mathematically but they are out of Europe, out of the Magyar Kupa and their only focus is the league.
2 goals from Oleksandr Zubkov, 1 in each half, a 1st half goal from Franck Boli and a 2nd half one from Isael, sealed the points. They could have scored more. Kenny Otigba made his 1st appearance in around 18 months following a long injury & looked decent. Good to see him back, he's a quality player to watch.
As for team ref - typical Zoltán Iványi performance. Man management superb, some decent advantages for Fradi but then Paks didn't give him the chance to play any for them! Foul detection decent & consistent. 5 yellow cards, all for fouls and all spot on. Didn't feel he missed any. Sigér for the home team, Lenzsér, Kecskés, Poór and Szabó for the away team. One particularly excellent non offside call from Theodoros Georgiou in the lead up to one of the goals, both he and István Albert put in a decent shift.
Well done Fradi & well done Team Ref!
Mol Fehérvár v Budapest Honvéd - Referee: Berke Balázs (Blue shirt)
Well the really good news is that Sannino went a full 90 mins without a card - ok so he had a touchline ban but I'm sure he could still manage to find a way to be on the end of a card! Love his passion, hate how he conducts himself!
0-0 draw but the game was anything but boring. Good contest between the 2 teams - neither dominated, it was a finely matched game and Mr Berke was quite content to let it flow around him but step in when needed. Good performance from him & his team, he is super fit and no trouble keeping up with play. Knowledge and application of the LOTG superb & consistent.
Only 2 yellow cards in this one - Ikenne-King and Lanzafame, both Kispest for fouls. I did think Fiola of MOL was lucky to get a yellow as well, but as it's subjective I can go with his decision not to give him one. Red card for Aliji for violent conduct. Bit of something out of nothing but if you give the referee the decision to make then you can't complain when he makes it. He'll be joining Sannino in the stands next week!
Mezőkövesd Zsóry v Kisvárda Master Good - Referee: Solymosi Péter (Red shirt)
Guess which game was the main focus of bmb's attention in the 4 mid afternoon games!
Decent game to watch and a 1-0 home win. The lovely Mr Solymosi looking very fit & trim. He continues to prove that he is more than capable of putting in a good shift despite being older than what was the retirement age for so long. He kept up with play well, his decision making was accurate and consistent.
4 yellow cards, Aleksandr Karnitskiy, for the home team, Roman Karasiuk, Viktor Hei, and Rados Protic for the away team - all for fouls and all spot on. Simovic was also cautioned for a foul after around 30 mins, just before half time there was a bit of an altercation between him and a player from Mezőkövesd, I'm not sure if was the player that he had fouled 15 mins previously or not. Mr Solymosi took them both to one side and gave them both a good talking too, seemed like good man management. Simovic was visibly not happy, given his demeanor and having a lot to say for himself, the player from Mezőkövesd held out his hand for a handshake & Simovic slapped it away. At this point Mr Solymosi called over the captain and going on body language told him to calm his player down, as the captain approached Simovic there was an exchange between them and Simovic started to shout at the referee and then walked off shouting. At that point he was given a 2nd yellow for dissent and off he went for an early bath. Rest of the game passed without undue incident. Mr Solymosi has more patience than me, I would have given him the 2nd yellow as soon as he slapped the Mezőkövesd player's hand away but he still tried to calm the situation first.
Old skool sensible performance from him. Couple of superb calls from Vencel Tóth to top off a performance that team ref can be very happy with.
ZTE v DVTK - Referee: Karakó Ferenc (Red shirt)
One of my small screen games so I didn't watch & the Euro water sports final took priority today!!
1-3 away win, ZTE will be very disappointed with their defending judging by Chris's comments! Chris is one of our MagyarFoci crowd & was watching. 3 yellow cards - Bence Bedi & Nikola Mitrovic for fouls and Benjamin Babati for USB. Chris was happy enough with them.
1 big incident, which I have seen on the góóól show which was a penalty for a foul on Ikoba, was a correct decision. All in all looks like a decent performance from him & I do hope that he can maintain that for the rest of the season. I would actually rather him be doing well than not!
Kaposvári Rákóczi v Puskás Akadémia - Referee: Erdős József (black shirt)
My other small screen game and no-one from our group were really watching it. 1-1 draw which is a huge result for Kaposvár. They are firmly entranced at the foot of the table and certain to go down. Felscút will not be happy, they are in 4th place and would have been hoping for 3 points as they are after a European place. 2 yellow cards Igors Tarasovs for handball for the home team and Csaba Spandler for a foul from the away team. Yoëll Van Nieff was also sent off - YYR as opposed to straight red. The 2nd yellow is listed as persistent fouling. Can't comment as I've not watched the game.
DVSC v Újpest - Referee: Farkas Ádám (Black shirt)
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear and that is aimed at my team and not team referee. It would appear that our defence decided that they wanted an extra week off and decided against turning up! 4-0 home win and a shameful and embarrassing performance from my Lilák. Mr beautiful said after the game that the team had played like children, with no confidence and with trembling legs and granted Loki a easy win with a myriad of mistakes. He's not far off - bit politer than I would put it but then I'm not the manager being interviewed live on national TV minutes after the team had completely humiliated themselves so I can be less polite!!! Love Nebojsá but the entire team can go and sit on the naughty step - shameful from each and every one of them. Banai made Pajovic look world class, a complete comedy of a goalkeeping performance and that is being polite! I checked with everyone that it was Banai not Pajovic in goal, he was really that bad. In fact he was even worse than that bad. The sound of his flapping about aimlessly drowned out what little crowd had bothered to turn up. I'm pretty sure the 2,120 people there kept checking to see if they were at the football or the circus...
In fairness to Loki, they looked more like the Loki we expect to see than the lacklustre Loki we saw in the autumn. They put in a decent shift. The 2nd goal was a thing of pure beauty (well if you're not the opposition). A great bit of individual play from Varga and he deserves plaudits for his run, at least half the length of the pitch followed by a beautiful pinpoint cross to Szécsi for his 2nd goal of the game. It could be pointed out that had our defence actually bothered to turn up to the game that someone might have put in a tackle somewhere along the way and had Banai not being trying to see if his arms had turned into wings yet and had stopped flapping for a second and tried to I dunno, keep goal or something... That would however be very churlish, it was great play by Varga and a very sulky and bratty bmb has to concede that!
So onto team ref. Usual lenient performance from Mr Farkas. He didn't really do anything wrong. 5 yellow cards, 3 for Loki Erik Kusnyír for USB and Márk Szécsi and Richard Csősz for fouls and for my hapless lot, Péter Szakály and Dzenan Burekovic for fouls. 2 further incidents of note. After a 4 min spell (49-53 mins) where Loki were content to play on by themselves and Lilák were in the pub supping cocktails or something and conceded 2 goals that the 1st of which an U4 team would have been embarrassed to concede and the 2nd which I have grudgingly acknowledged above, the manager took the bold move to make all 3 subs at one. On came Patrik Bacsa for his debut, 5 mins later he was in the bath after receiving a red for a professional foul. It did feel a soft red, not wrong but soft, that could however be my slipping Lilák rosetints though that think that! It was a stupid tackle but not entirely convinced it warranted a red. Banai went the right way for the subsequent penalty but there it was 3-0. Just 5 mins later it was 4-0, Adeniji taking advantage of Banai's obsession with doing big bird impressions and the humiliation was complete.
The manager is understandably furious with the boys complete lack of effort and I think he will be kicking some butt this week in training. Let's hope our defence in particular decide to actually start the season next week...