For the first time in Hungarian football’s history, three clubs have made it to the play-offs of European competitions. The reigning champions Ferencváros faced the Bosnian side FK Borac Banja Luka in the Europa League; while cup winners Paks played the Czech Mladá Boleslav, and third-place finishers in the league Puskás Akadémia played the famous Italian club Fiorentina in the Conference League.

Coincidentally,

all three of them tied their first leg.

This was a great disappointment for heavy favourites Ferencváros at home, but a huge upset and impressive feat for Puskás Akadémia away against top Serie A team Fiorentina. Paks also did better than expected against their opponent on the road.

Paks took to the pitch first on Thursday, 29 August. Mladá Boleslav changed head coaches between the two games, giving the Paks coaching staff a lot of guesswork to do on their opponents’ tactics. The first half ended in a 0–0 tie, with Paks posing some threat to the Czech goal from long-range shots. At the start of the second half, however, they conceded two goals in just seven minutes in an unexpected turn of events. This sealed Paks’s fate in European football for this season. Mladá Boleslav ended up winning the game 3–0, and advanced 5–2 on aggregate.

Puskás Akadémia and Ferencváros kicked off at the same time, 9pm. Both games also went to penalties late into the night.

Again, this reflects a lot better on Puskás, who played the finalists of the last two Conference League campaigns. They created quite a few chances in the game as well. However, Spanish international David de Gea in Fiorentina’s goal, who had spent over a decade as the first-choice keeper for Manchester United, lived up to his reputation and made a series of great saves. The Violets from Florence took the lead in the 59th minute with a goal from Moise Kean, but Puskás managed to equalize with a last-minute penalty from Hungarian international Zsolt Nagy. Fiorentina defender Luca Ranieri was also sent off with a second yellow card for his foul that gave away the penalty, which means Puskás went into extra time with 11 men against ten. Fiorentina even went down to nine after a red card for Pietro Comuzzo, but managed to hang on to the draw until the end, so the penalty shootout came.

There was some extra hope for the Felcsút team in the shootout, given the fact that De Gea was notoriously bad at saving penalties during his Manchester United years. In the 2021 Europa League final, Villareal players managed to score 11 out of 11 (!) against him, granting them the title. This time, however, De Gea saved Puskás captain Roland Szolnoki’s spot kick, while all five Fiorentina players were able to convert theirs. Thus, Fiorentina advanced to the Conference League league phase—

but what a memorable performance it was from Puskás Akadémia against the heavily favoured opposition!

Ferencváros travelled to Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina (the ethnic Serbian part of the country) to play in front of a fired-up crowd eager to see the first ever Bosnian team make it to the Europa League. Just like the first leg, this game did not feature many chances either, with a lot of stoppages. Overall, the Hungarian champions played the better quality football, but the second leg ended in a goalless draw as well, so players got ready for extra time.

Then, in the 103rd minute, FK Borac shocked Hungarian football fans and took the lead after a corner. Thankfully, the Bosnian side’s goalkeeper Filip Manojlovic—who did a lot to keep the game goalless in Budapest a week ago—helped Fradi out. He gave away an obvious penalty with an extremely clumsy challenge on Kady Borges. Barnabás Varga, who recently returned to the pitch after his horrific head injury against Scotland at Euro 2024, scored the penalty and made it 1–1.

In the shootout, the hosts did the favour of missing the target three times out of five. Meanwhile, only newcomer Philippe Rommens missed his penalty from the Ferencváros side. Thus, it was Fradi that qualified for the Europa League’s newly established league phase (where they are set to play eight games, instead of the previous standard six games in the group stage), after beating out Banja Luka 1–1 on aggregate, and 3–2 on penalties.

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