Goals from Kodro, Petryak and Dardai gave us a 3-0 home win on Sunday evening.
In the final match of the 12th round of the OTP Bank League our team played against Zalaegerszeg at the MOL Arena Sósto. Imre Szabics put his confidence in the following team of Kovács D. - Nego, Rus, Stopira, Heister - Funsho, Szendrei, Makarenko, Petryak - Kodro, Dárdai from the first minute, while former Vidi striker and current ZTE manager Róbert Waltner named Babati, Kostas, Skribek and Spoljariko among his attacking-minded players.
After almost 15 minutes of play, two left-wing crosses from Petryak created danger in front of the Zalaegerszeg goal, and the second one was followed by a corner. In the 17th minute, the visiting goalkeeper couldn't do anything as Dárdai made a delicate move to put the ball back to Kenan Kodró, and our Basque-Bosnian striker powered a great shot into the right side of the goal from 23 metres (1-0).
Twenty minutes into the match, Szendrei tried to clear inside his own box, but he put Daniel Kovács in a difficult situation with a poorly directed header, but our goalkeeper made a great save. Three minutes later, Makarenko's pass was headed into the bottom right corner by Dárdai from 21 yards, Demjén got a hand to the ball to deny him. In the 36th minute we doubled our lead! Makarenko won the ball, played a good ball to Dárdai, who was running inside the middle, who brought Petrjak into play, and our Ukrainian winger shot low into the far corner to make it (2-0). In the remainder of the first half, neither goal was in danger and we went into the dressing room with a two-goal lead.
At the break, Róbert Waltner made three substitutions, Babati, Halilovic and Skribek did come back out for the restart, Gergényi, Zimonyi and Milovanovikj replaced them. The triple substitution didn't break the momentum of our team, in the 49th minute Kodro headed the ball into the hands of Demjén, but in the 54th minute Nego's cross was calmly controlled by Dárdai and he had several ZTE defenders around him but managed to score our third goal (3-0). Shortly after the goal, Kodro was on the end of a great cross from Petryak, but he headed the ball over the goal from close range.
In the 70th minute, Koszta got hold of the ball and then put a cross in from the right, which Dániel Kovács prevented Zimonyi from scoring, and we finally managed to clear the rebound away for a corner. After the chance, Szendrei was replaced by Nikolic, and Attila Fiola, who had earlier replaced Funsho, was on the pitch for 10 minutes. In the 80th minute, Nikolic converted Heister's cross into the net from close range, but our German left-back had been offside when he received the ball before centering and the goal was disallowed. Seven minutes later, Nikolic was on hand to set up this time, his right-wing cross was nodded wide by Petryak from close range, and before the end, Dardai and Kodro were replaced by Zivzivadze and Jallow. In the minutes of extra time, we saw two ZTE chances (Meshack and Zimonyi missed from close range), then Gergő Bogár blew for full time and we beat Zalaegerszeg 3-0, confidently.
After the national team break, Imre Szabics' team will play against FTC at the Groupama Arena, the match of the 13th round of the OTP Bank Liga will start on the 21st November at 17:30.
Author: David Rechnitzer