Paksi FC striker Dániel Böde played his 500th game in the first division of the Hungarian football league OTP Bank Liga against Puskás Akadémia on Saturday, 19 April. He is just the fifth footballer to reach the 500-game milestone in the Hungarian league’s history after Zoltán Végh (570), Attila Kuttor (560), Béla Illés (540), and György Szabó (510).
The 38-year-old sportsman also scored on his jubilee match, converting a penalty in the 21st minute. The game ended in a 2–2 tie, which means that his Paks side remains third on the table, one point behind their weekend opposition, Puskás, and four points behind reigning champion Ferencváros at the top of the table.
Even more impressively, Böde is currently leading the top scorers’ list, tied on 13 goals with Debrecen’s Donát Bárány.
Overall, Böde has scored 160 goals over the course of his 500 games in the league. Scoring after about every three games may not sound as outstanding for a striker. However, Böde actually started his career as a defensive midfielder and was moved up front to be a ‘power forward’ in his fourth season for Paks, in 2008.
Böde has only played for two clubs in his entire career: Paks (from 2005 to 2012, then from 2019 to now) and Ferencváros (from 2012 to 2019). With the latter club, he won the league twice, as well as the top scorer award once. He remains very popular among Ferencváros fans to this day. He has also won the Hungarian Cup a total of four times: three times with FTC, and once with Paks, last year.
As for the national team, Böde collected 25 caps for Hungary and scored five goals. He was part of the 2016 Euro squad as well, the Hungarian side that qualified for a major tournament after 40 years.
‘Many thousands of footballers have appeared in the league in the history of Hungarian football, but only five of us have made it to here [500 league games]. This is not a common achievement, I am proud of it,’ the Man of the Hour has told the Hungarian sports daily Nemzeti Sport.
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