Hungarian Football League: The autumn season was all about Ferencváros

The Hungarian Football Association’s offical website said, as the OTB Bank league enjoys its winter break we can reflect on an autumn season which Ferencváros ended as runaway leaders, but on the other hand there are only three points between the clubs in second and seventh place. Reigning champions Videoton lie in third after a poor start to the season was followed by a superb recovery but they’ve still yet to draw even one game. Further down the table, Puskás Akadémia end the first half of the season in the relegation zone for the first time in their top-flight history.

Ferencváros (Position: 1st, points total: 49, points total at same stage last season: 37)

– Thomas Doll’s team showed they were the best in every way; most points scored, most wins, least defeats and least goals conceded.
– The green and whites’ defeat at the hands of MTK on 21st November brought to an end a long 34-match unbeaten run which bettered all but one in Fradi’s whole history, that of the 36-match run in 1931 and 1932 which included the 22-game winning streak which propelled them to the 1931-32 Hungarian title with a perfect record.
– Fradi’s defeat by Újpest in their final game of the autumn season destroyed their 100% win record at home this campaign and marked their first ever loss to Hungarian opposition in their new home the Groupama Aréna and their first home league defeat since 30th November 2013.
– Ferencváros lead the division by 18 points, a rare occurrence in Hungarian league history that one team leads the rest by a greater margin than ten points and one that becomes even rarer if it wastes away. The last such instance of this was in 2001-02 when MTK led Zalaegerszegi TE by 11 points but it was the latter who eventually lifted the league trophy that season.

Újpest FC (Position: 2nd, points total: 31, points total in 2014–2015 season after 19 rounds: 29)

– The lilac and whites have scored two more points than they had at the same stage last season. Last time round 29 points had only been enough for 7th place in the table.
– Nebojsa Vignjevics’ team showed two very different faces this season; during the first 11 rounds they went on a nine-match winless run but from the 12th round onwards they won seven and drew one, scoring 19 points in the process.
– The season’s most prolific foreign goalscorer is Újpest’s Mbaye Diagne who has scored 11 goals in 14 games. Even if we look at the all-time statistics, no Újpest player from abroad has ever scored 11 goals in one NBI season.
– Újpest have their ‘bogey teams’. Since 7th December 2014 they have lost nine league matches, twice each to Ferencváros, Diosgyőr, Paks and Videoton. The other loss came last season against Pécsi MFC who were not in NBI this time round…

Videoton FC (Position: 3, points total: 30, points total at same stage last season: 48)

– Last season Vidi were in top spot by the last round of the autumn season; this time, the last round was the first time they’d reached the podium places.
– The title holders were the only team to have three head coaches during the 19 rounds: Bernard Casoni, Tamás Pető and Ferenc Horváth. Of those three, Horváth was the most sucessful, winning 18 points over eight matches with a 75% win rate, the second best amongst all 15 top-tier coaches so far this season. Only Thomas Doll is ahead of him having won 49 points from a possible 57 with Ferencváros and a 85.96% win rate.
– Only Fradi won more matches than Vidi but only the two new promoted teams lost more than the team from Székesfehérvár. Since 21st March 2015 they have only drawn one league match (on 16th May). Noteworthy: Since 2nd December 2012 Vidi have only drawn three matches at home at the soon-to-be rebuilt Sóstói Stadium, the last being on 23rd ovember 2014.
– In their first ten games this season Vidi garnered only nine points; in the next nine matches they accrued a vastly improved 21 points.

Paksi FC (Position: 4th; points total: 30, points total at same stage last season: 31)

– Aurél Csertői’s team are one point worse off than after 19 matches last season.
Overall, one can say their performance has been steady but it is also important to state that only two points were garnered from their last three matches and this ruined the end of their half-season. Their 5-0 defeat by Ferencváros was their worst ever top-flight home defeat.
– In between the two defeats against Ferencváros, Paks went on a ten-match unbeaten run which included five straight victories.
– Since 20th March 2015 only Ferencváros have been able to take all three points away from matches in Paks.
– Fradi only conceded eight goals in autumn with Paks amongst the group of four teams with the next tightest defences having conceded only 19 goals.

MTK Budapest (Position: 5th; points total: 29; points total at same stage last season: 42)

– The blue and whites are far from their tally of last season at the same stage, mainly due to a poorer set of results away from home.
– They’ve played fewer home matches than any other team (7) but of these, they’ve won six, conceding only three goals in 630 minutes. Csaba László’s team will only travel to the countryside twice out of 14 scheduled matches in springtime.
– MTK only won two away matches in autumn; one against Vasas and one at Felcsút at the expense of hosts Puskás Akadémia. During the whole of 2015 MTK won only three away matches.
The blue and whites’ longest unbeaten run in autumn was five matches but bearing in mind their poor away record overall, it is a surprise that of these five matches, four were away from from home.

Szombathelyi-Swietelsky Haladás (Position: 6th; points total: 29, points total at same stage last season: 12)

– Haladás’ results have improved unbelievably since last season. Until March 8th 2015 last season, Haladás had only scored 12 points from 19 matches and were bottom of the 16-team NBI table with a goal ratio of 10 scored against 27 conceded. Now, that record is 17 goals scored, 19 conceded and one of the frontrunners for Hungarian Player of the Year is their goalkeeper Gábor Király.
– Between 25th July and 31st October Haladás won six out of 13 league matches by a scoreline of 1-0.
– Géza Mészöly’s team actually had a better away record than at home. With just six goals conceded away from home, their away defensive record is only bettered by leaders Ferencváros.
– Haladás’ first seven games were their most productive, securing them 14 points. The next six fixtures yielded seven points and their final set of six games saw a return of eight points.