Following the draw against Sabah, our men’s soccer team played its second—and final—pre-season match on Wednesday at the training camp in Austria. Once again, we faced an Azerbaijani opponent, namely Qarabag, a team we know well. Balázs Borbély put his trust in the following starting lineup: Dibusz – Cadu, Gómez, Raemaekers, Osváth – Keita, Kanikovszki, Corbu – Lisztes, Yusuf, Szevikjan. The match kicked off in Kufstein under slightly rainy, almost autumnal conditions.

First Half

In the third minute, Dibusz had to come off his line to clear a cross. The rain made play difficult, as the field had become very soggy. In the 15th minute, Lisztes lost the ball in a dangerous area; Montiel’s shot deflected off one of our players, resulting in a corner kick that posed no further threat. After that, both Cadu and Gómez made important blocks inside our penalty area.

On the other end, Kochalski had to stop a shot by Szevikjan, and the Polish goalkeeper then made a spectacular save on Cadu’s deflected shot. Shortly afterward, Bamidele Yusuf won the ball, and in a 2-on-1 situation, Corbu played it back to him, but our forward waited too long and his shot was blocked. In the 29th minute, however, he made no mistake: after Cadu and Lisztes applied pressure, a cross came in from the left, and Yusuf timed his run perfectly in the middle to head the ball into the net (1-0). The play unfolded in the same way in the 37th minute, but Szevikjan’s header went over the bar.

Second Half

We made a substitution at halftime: Ádám Varga took Dibusz’s place in goal, so the captain’s armband went to Naby Keita. We almost scored our second goal, but Szevikjan’s shot was saved by the Azerbaijani goalkeeper. In the 55th minute, Varga had to punch away a free kick by Montiel. After that, we made our substitutions: Elton Acolatse, Franko Kovacevic, Nathan Zohoré, and Philippe Rommens Raemaekers came on for Keita, Lisztes, and Yusuf. In the 71st minute, we escaped a dangerous Qarabag chance as Zakaria shot just centimeters wide. Five minutes later, we made more substitutions, bringing on Daniel Arzani, Zsombor Gruber, Callum O’Dowda, Endre Botka, Kristoffer Zachariassen, and Olivér Nagy, who had just signed a contract extension.

No more goals were scored, so Bamidele Yusuf’s strike sealed the win for us, 1-0 against Qarabag.

Next week, the stakes will be higher as we face Vojvodina in the first round of the UEFA Europa League qualifiers.