A Cup Final With Everything: Hooligans and Racists

Tibor Ladányi, László Zsidai, Tamás Kulcsár

I usually do not write about personal experiences or a sporting event that I was at and witnessed with my own eyes or how I saw something. What I experienced on May first has me pretty upset and I thought I would write about it. In case anyone missed it Debreceni VSC who is leading the Hungarian first division was playing MTK Budapest who is one point away from securing promotion back to the top flight, for the Hungarian Cup at the Puskás stadium in Budapest. MTK Budapest historically is considered a Jewish team or a team that was supported by the Jewish community just like Tottenham Hotspurs in England and Ajax in the Netherlands, and Debreceni VSC who was supported by the railway workers in the eastern part of the country. The basic scoop on Debrecen is that they are going for their 6th title in the past eight seasons and just about have it in the bag along with a spot in the Champions League. MTK Budapest last season was relegated to the second division, this season they have yet to lose and have pretty much guaranteed themselves promotion. Just like in any other league, winning the domestic cup earns you a sport in the Europa League unless you have a spot in the Champions League which DVSC already seems to have, and there for MTK would take the Europa League spot even if they lost the cup. Based off of all of this regardless of what happened in the cup final both teams can safely say that the season has been a success. About 12 of us decided that it would be worth the 1000 HUF (about $5) to check out a cup final.

The match itself was exciting and had everything a person that is not a big fan of football (soccer) would have also had a great time. There was a nice family friendly environment in the 4,000+ fans that were in attendance.The first 45 minutes was exciting back and forth with both teams having scoring opportunities. The match was scoreless until the 45th minute when Norbert Könyves put MTK up 1-0 with a blast into the bottom right corner of the net. Both teams made some substitutions early in the second half and DVSC tied it up in the 51th with a goal from French international Selim Bouadla with Péter Szakály putting them up 2-1 five minutes later. In the 60th minute DVSC defender Balázs Nikolov picked up his second yellow card which left Debrecen a man short for the rest of the match. Two minutes later MTK capitalized on this when Tibor Ladányi lofted the ball over the keepers outstretched arms to even the match at 2-2. MTK kept Debrecen under pressure for the remainder of the match when in the 87th minute when László Zsidai put the team from Budapest up 3-2 and it seemed the cup was in the bag for the blue and whites. The MTK youngsters were unable to hold on to the lead for the last three minutes when Szakály struck again for DVSC and sending the match into overtime. After two times 15 minutes the match was still 3-3 which meant it was time for a shootout. The shootout went to the 9th round when DVSC keeper István Verpecz saved Dávid Kálnoki Kis’ shot to give Debrecen their third Hungarian Cup in five seasons.

As we left the stadium with our heads a bit lower then we started the match since we were pulling for MTK we could not really complain since the match had six goals, overtime and a shootout and a player being sent off. We also kept on saying its ok these two teams will meet up again for the Hungarian Super Cup as well. On the metro ride back to the city center at one of the stops two boys in their late teens-early twenties who thought they were hard asses went up to a guy in his mid twenties sitting next to his girlfriend and wearing his MTK jersey and one of them spits on him and demanded he take his jersey off, this punk then follows this up by stating to everyone on the metro that he doesn't want to see any Jewish stuff. The guy with his girlfriend pulls his jersey off embarrassingly and seemed like he was happy nothing happened. The two guys work their way down the car until they get to us were by now there are five of us left from the original group that we had went with. Three of saw what had originally happened at the other end of the car however our friend who organized the excursion had his jersey on as well did not see what had happened. The two guys come up to our friend Zoli, who is rather large and around 190 cm, and ask him “I bet you are Jewish as well so you better take your shirt off”, keep in mind none of us are Jewish. To this Zoli responds back be saying you want it then take it off me. This goes back and forth a couple of times as the two instigators can not come up with anything original. Eventually Zoli gets sick of this and asks them what is their problem with MTK Budapest and what team do they root for. Of course we knew that they didn't care about soccer at all, they were just trying to act like hardasses.

In the end nothing happened but we all felt sick, after a nice afternoon and evening watching some football the day had to be ruined by some clowns like this. There is no room for this in professional sports. When you think of hooliganism you think of England but this would never happen at the FA Cup final, unfortunately these acts still happen in Hungary and other former Soviet bloc countries. When one goes to a sporting event they are supposed to be there to enjoy the family friendly environment, root for their team and hope that your team gets the W.