Thanks to our 1-0 away victory, we went into the second leg against Trabzonspor with the advantage. At the same time, the fact that our rival had defeated Istanbul Basaksehir 2-1 at home in the second round of the Turkish league served as a reminder to remain cautious. Both goals in that match were scored by Egyptian star striker Mohamed Salah, who was signed this past summer and, of course, was in the starting lineup once again.
Balázs Borbély said before the match: “We have to play smart; starting from a well-organized defense, we need to focus on exploiting open spaces and creating scoring opportunities.”
In contrast, the Turkish team’s head coach, Fatih Tekke, expected Fradi to set up defensively.

Balázs Borbély made a single change to the starting eleven that won in Trabzon: Ádám Nagy replaced Philippe Rommens in the starting lineup at defensive midfielder.
Ferencváros started the match as follows:
Dibusz – O. Nagy, Gómez, Raemaekers, Cadu – Corbu, Á. Nagy, Zachariassen – O’Dowda, Joseph, Yusuf.
The Turkish team’s starting lineup naturally included Mohamed Salah, in whom the Trabzon fans had placed high hopes. We can’t really call them visiting fans, since Trabzonspor supporters were not allowed in the Groupama Arena due to a UEFA sanction.

First Half
Kristoffer Zachariassen kicked off the game, and we launched an attack almost immediately; Lenny Joseph nearly found himself in a scoring position. It quickly became clear that, contrary to Turkish expectations, Fradi didn’t intend to just play defense in this match.

The Turks, just as in the first match, played the acting card again; at the end of the 10th minute, Lopes Cabral went down dramatically after Callum O’Dowda failed to slow down and knocked him over. Our Irish player immediately apologized, but to no avail; the Cape Verdean player and half the Turkish team surrounded the referee, demanding a card for the accidental foul. Two minutes later, they were begging the referee not to give a card to Ruslan Malinovskyi, who had mercilessly slid into Gómez Mariano’s ankle. The verdict: an immediate red card! In the 13th minute, we gained a man advantage.

In the 15th minute, a goal nearly came: Lenny Joseph was just centimeters short of Yusuf’s cross and couldn’t direct the ball toward the goal. In the next minute, Máriusz Corbu tested Onana with a shot.

Then, in the 19th minute, there was no mercy: Callum O’Dowda timed his run perfectly to meet Ádám Nagy’s perfect cross and headed the ball right into the center of the net! (1-0) This gave Fradi a two-goal lead on aggregate.

Aware of their lead and man advantage, Fradi didn’t let Trabzon take control of the game, and we continued to create the more promising chances. In the 38th minute, Cadu found the back of the net off a pass from Zachariassen, but the linesman flagged for offside. Five minutes later, Onana made a spectacular save on Zachariassen’s shot, and then on the other end, Ádám Nagy tackled Salah at the end of a tremendous sprint.

The teams went into halftime with Fradi leading 1-0.

Second Half
Fatih Tekke made three substitutions at halftime, trying to give the Turkish team a more attacking mindset, but the substitutions didn’t help Trabzonspor either; for the first ten minutes of the half, Fradi had almost exclusive possession.
We crushed Trabzonspor!

So much so that in the 55th minute, after two beautiful dribbles, Máriusz Corbu fired the ball into the left corner from 14 meters out on the left (2-0)! The aggregate score was now 3-0 in Fradi’s favor!

Barely more than a minute had passed when Lopes Cabral, who had already been booked, tripped Bamidele Yusuf inside the box: the result was a red card and a penalty, which our Nigerian striker sent into the bottom left corner (3–0)!

Fradi now held a four-goal lead on aggregate, and with a two-man advantage, the match was effectively decided. The Turks kept trying, but their only realistic goal was to avoid an even more lopsided defeat. Perhaps that’s why André Onana took his time with every goal kick.
In the 81st minute, the Turkish goalkeeper had to stop an unexpected shot by Cadu. In the 83rd minute, perhaps the best player of the match, Máriusz Corbu, left the field to a standing ovation when he was replaced by Naby Keita. Five minutes later, Krisztián Lisztes, who had entered the game in the 70th minute, also scored (4-0), sealing Ferencváros’s victory once and for all.

By eliminating Górnik Zabrze, Fradi had already secured its eighth consecutive season in the main draw of a European cup competition, and on this wonderful evening, it was also decided that this cup competition would be the Europa League, just as it had been a year earlier

The draw for the Europa League group stage will take place on Friday, August 28, at 1:00 p.m. at UEFA’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.