The winner of the last six Hungarian league titles Ferencváros beat the Dutch side AZ Alkmaar 4–3 in an eventful game at home on Thursday, 30 January. The victory means that the green-and-whites advance from the UEFA Europa League’s league phase, and will face the Czech Viktoria Plzen in the preliminary round of the knockout stage. The draw for the upcoming EL rounds was held at 1 PM Budapest time today in Nyon, France.
When this tie was originally drawn in the first-ever league phase in Europa League history, it was looking to be quite an interesting match-up: Ferencváros head coach Pascal Jansen’s previous team happened to be AZ. However, over the winter break, Jansen was bought out of his contract and signed to manage New York City in the MLS. Thus, he was replaced by Robbie Keane. Keane is a former Irish international who has had an illustrious playing career in the Premier League, playing for such clubs as Liverpool and Tottenham, as well as the Italian side Inter Milan.
This was his home turf debut in front of FTC’s famously ferocious fans. 19,000 of them showed up for this clash against the Dutch. AZ had already secured their qualification to the next round before the match, so some of their key players started the game on the bench.
Ferencváros took full advantage of that, and took a comfortable, 3–0 lead by the end of the first half.
Mohamed Ben Romdhane scored two headers, one at the beginning, and one at the end of the first half. In between the two goals, Adama Traoré (who also gave one of the assists to Ben Romdhane) fired home a screamer from 27 yards out, which went in after clipping the post.
AZ Alkmaar got one back in the 76th minute, Sven Mijnans came in from the bench and scored. However, just six minutes later, Hungarian international Barnabás Varga converted a penalty which was given for a handball, restoring the three-goal cushion for Fradi.
The end still ended up being quite nerve-wracking for the home fans, as AZ scored two more goals in the last minutes of the game. However, Ferencváros was able to hold onto their 4–3 victory, and thus made it out of the EL league phase. They finished 17th on the table with 12 points, four victories and four losses.
‘I think we played a great game for 85 minutes, we were in control of the game, but of course I’m not satisfied with the last ten minutes,’ head coach Keane told the press after his home debut, as quoted by Nemzeti Sport Online. ‘Our fans created a fantastic atmosphere and continued to cheer our players on in the last minutes when we scored. Together with them, we need to make this arena a fortress, not only for international matches but also for Hungarian league matches,’ he went on to state.
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