Ferencváros win Hungarian league title

Serhiy Rebrov’s Ferencváros have won the Hungarian league title for a record 31st time following a 2-0 victory at this season’s Hungarian Cup winners Budapest Honvéd. In Tuesday evening’s other match, Zalaegerszeg took a big step towards OTP Bank Liga safety with a single-goal success away at Kisvárda, András Radó’s 83rd-minute penalty proving to be the difference between the two strugglers.

It had only seemed to be a matter of time before runaway OTP Bank Liga leaders Ferencváros confirmed their second successive league title, so it is no surprise that Hungary’s most successful club has been declared 2019/20 league champions with four fixtures still to play. Despite – or perhaps because of – their dominant position eleven points ahead of second-placed MOL Fehérvár, Fradi head coach Rebrov decided to rest six first-team regulars for this away fixture against Honvéd in their temporary home of the New Nándor Hidegkuti stadium.

The tempo was high from the start of the game but neither side could edge ahead in a well-contested first half.

That all changed in the 48th minute though when Fradi’s Slovenian defender Miha Blažič made up for his teammate Oleksandr Zubkov’s glaring miss a few seconds earlier by heading his club in front from a corner, shortly after which Michal Škvarka doubled the lead by finishing off a swift counter-attack. Honvéd tried to haul themselves back into the game thereafter but they never managed to seriously threaten the goal of their former keeper Dávid Gróf.

Ferencváros therefore remain champions for a second year for the first time since 1996 and become the first club to retain Hungary’s league title since Debrecen in 2010.

They currently have 70 points and are well-placed to beat their own record points haul in a 12-team league of 76, which they reached in 2016. Last season they remained unbeaten at home in the league throughout and are on course to repeat this feat.

Three of their squad, Dénes Dibusz, Roland Varga and Leandro, have won title medals in 2016, 2019 and 2020, the latter player earning his sixth Hungarian league championship medal and indeed his last, the former Hungary international defender having already announced his intention to retire from professional football at the end of this season.

In the evening’s other OTP Bank Liga fixture, the man heading the Hungarian goalscoring charts, former Ferencváros striker András Radó, gave his Zalaegerszeg team a boost by earning and then scoring a late penalty to ensure three points from their visit to Kisvárda in Eastern Hungary. Zalaegerszeg now lie in 7th place on 39 points, seven clear of Debrecen in the second and final relegation place, Kaposvár having already been confirmed as one of the two clubs to drop out of the top tier at the end of this campaign.

Read alsoMLSZ President Csányi elected for new five-year term