Our long serving team captain is preparing for his last domestic Vidi match, he will retire at the end of the season. We interviewed him before the farewell.
We play against Ferencváros on Tuesday night and you are preparing for the last home match of your career. How do you feel about this meeting?
I am definitely sad that there is nothing to play for in a match in terms of the final result of the season, but we will still play against Ferencváros, which is always a special game. Now our opponent will be the fresh champions. We want to show on the pitch that this big points difference that has developed between FTC and us is not a reality, we want to prove that we are as good a team as our opponent on Tuesday.
You arrived at Vidi in February 2013, how would you summarise the past years? Did you manage to achieve everything that you wanted to in Székesfehérvár when you signed at that time?
When I arrived here, many people thought I had come here to unwind. I trust that during these 7.5 years I was able to prove the opposite and add to the life of the club. I managed to achieve a lot with Vidi, we won championship titles, became cup winners and as a member of a Hungarian team I was able to be part of a successful international campaign at the EC in 2016 - these were my primary goals, I am glad that they were achieved. At the same time, I also have a sense of missing out, I am thinking primarily of this season, I wanted to say goodbye to Vidi and actively play for some trophy, and the loss of the 2017 final league match against Honvéd is also a painful memory.
The moment of saying goodbye is getting closer, but how much are you already there in your head, or are you still very much alive in the present?
I’m still so much in the present that I still asked the others today when pre-season will start, when and where will the training camp be. Then, of course, it reminds me that as a player, I will no longer be involved in these things. Training camps have always been my weaknesses, but nonetheless, they have been part of our lives, my live for so many years, so it’s going to be terribly weird. We’ll see how my future unfolds, but finishing as a player will bring a whole new situation. But once it all ends, the most important thing is that Tuesday’s farewell goes the way I want it to.
You said goodbye to the national team at the end of 2016, so you already have some benchmark for an event like this, yet how much do you think Tuesday night will be different?
Saying goodbye to the national team was also very difficult, as the national team has always been the most important thing for me, but I think this one will be even harder now. Back then, I knew it wasn’t my career ending, just a phase of it, but now I’m finally finishing as a player. I’m getting more and more sensitive as we get closer to the match, which of course isn’t a problem, as it can happen because I have a lot of experiences in mind, but it won’t be easy. But my goal is to have similar successes in the future, whether I stay as a coach or in another position within football, and I will be able to cry with joy as I will probably now for the finish.
Author: David Rechnitzer