Ferencváros came into their UEFA Europa League league phase game against the Scottish side Rangers FC on Thursday, 11 December at the Groupama Arena in Budapest, Hungary sitting pretty in sixth place on the table. That position would grant them an automatic spot in the Round of 16 and spare them a play-off round. They have yet to meet an opponent in this EL campaign that bested them: Fradi’s record thus far is three wins, two draws, and zero losses.
Rangers cannot boast such an impressive performance in Europe this year, not even close. They collected a single point in five games (a 1–1 against Braga from Portugal in the last round), which put them in 33rd place out of 36 teams on the table.
What they can find pride in is their rich history, with 55 (!) Scotties league titles. However, only one of those is from the last 15 years. In that time period, the Glasgow Blues even had to rebuild from the 4th division due to bankruptcy. Here is another ‘however,’ though: in 2022, they made it to the Europa League final, and only lost to the German Bundesliga team Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties.
So, determining who had the upper hand in the tie ahead of the game was not as easy as the table would have suggested.
On the pitch, Ferencváros was the more offensive side at the beginning. Bamidele Yusuf nearly found the net just two minutes into the game, but his shot whizzed just wide after leaving the Rangers defence behind.
Fortunes shifted in the 27th minute, when Bojan Miovski—a North Macedonian international who had spent two seasons in the Hungarian league playing for MTK Budapest—kicked the ball into the Fradi net from mid-air with an impressive acrobatic move. The linesman initially flagged offside, but was overruled by VAR.
The next phase of the game featured a lot of ‘dead air,’ with Rangers players often lying down for treatment. When the ball was in play, they posed the bigger threat.
At the very end of the five-minute added time, however, Ferencváros found their equalizer. Bence Ötvös drove the ball into the bottom far corner from inside the box, after a daring forward play by centre-back (and captain for the game) Ibrahim Cissé, who showed up in the opposition box for some extra attacking power.
The two sides only produced one shot on target combined in the first 25 minutes of the second half, and even that was easily collected by the former England international Jack Butland in the Rangers goal.
Then, in the 72nd minute, the Hungarian champions took the lead in the most predictable way: aerial specialist Barnabás Varga headed yet another goal, with Callum O’Dowda providing him with the assist with a cross into the box this time.
Near the end, Fradi keeper Dávid Gróf (filling in for the injured Dénes Dibusz) had to make a great save after a deflected shot from Findlay Curtis from the edge of the box to keep his team ahead. But Ferencváros held on, and their 2–1 win over Rangers at home guarantees them at least a play-off spot in the Europa League knockout stage. And the automatic Round of 16 ‘ticket’ is getting closer and closer as well!
Fradi will have to face the Greek side Panathinaikos and the English Premier League side Nottingham Forest in January to achieve that dream.
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