This is post six of a wider series. A series for FM22.
“I could give you a thousand guesses and you’d never guess who. Seriously.”
The Invincibles…again!
Err, no this isn’t a mistake. Honvéd have won the OPT Bank Liga again. Again without losing a league game. That’s two years without a league defeat.
The 2023/24 season wasn’t quite as dominant as the year before. That said, it was a season defined by lots of change.
Let me tell you all about it.
We pivoted to a completely new tactical system, played in the UEFA Champions League for the first time in this series, broke our domestic cup semi-final curse and brought in some key new staff. It was an important season in more ways than one.
The team and system
Gone was the flat 4-4-2 or attacking 4-2-4.
In came a 4-3-3 with a focus on a juego de posición influence. Short passing, fluid movement into the channels, setting traps for the opposition while dominating possession of the ball.
In the 22/23 season, we had an average of 49% possession. In the 23/24 campaign that became 60%.
There were fundamental differences in our approach. Let’s dive a wee bit deeper.
The transformation in our passing volume and accuracy were indicative of our change in style. Less about the fast transitions and getting the ball forward to two physical strikers. More about controlling the game all over the pitch. We also held onto the ball better, losing possession massively less often.
Recently I was talking to Dan Gear of Lamia fame about full-backs. We discussed how many managers like to get their wide defenders high up the pitch to “stretch play.” As such, it seems reasonable to choose the role of a Complete Wing-Back. Hugging the touchline and playing vertically from goal-line to goal-line, providing width, right? Well as Dan and I discussed and agreed upon, this is not entirely the case.
You see, the CWB-A role actually has a key embedded player instruction, and that is to Roam from Position. Now although this accompanies the instruction to Stay Wider, in possession of the ball, the CWB won’t simply drive up the flank in the manner a winger would. Instead, he will show elements of the Inverted Wing Back, happy to drop further infield into the channels (or half-spaces if you prefer), if that’s where the space is in an attacking move.
As such, in the attacking phase of our 4-3-3, this actually creates an interesting partnership between the wing-backs and the wide attackers. With Ekanit Panya playing as an Inverted Winger, often he and Rodrigo Arciero on the right flank would be positioned close to each other, patiently exchanging passes, almost deciding between them who was in a better position to eventually deliver a cross towards the centre of the box or to the far post.
On the left, Romarinho playing as a Raumdeuter wandered a lot more flexibly, looking to support Lucas Di Yorio, almost as a second striker. This allowed wing-back Krisztián Tamás the run of the left side of the pitch.
Last year as a winger, Romarinho scored four goals and delivered 11 assists. This year he scored 20 goals and delivered 14 assists. His ability to cross and create opportunities didn’t suffer (in fact it improved), but he scored five times as many goals.
The opposition defence had to deal with multiple problems simultaneously in this case. One side of our attack focused on doubling up and overloading, whereas the other side had someone high and wide while a second player dragged defenders out of position, or looked to exploit space in behind them.
Throw in everybody’s favourite central midfield role (and if it isn’t yours, it should be), the CM-A driving into space to grab goals and lay on simple assists for the Poacher, and the system worked a treat.
The players
This year a number of new players had arrived. All of which on free transfers, apart from Thai sensation Ekanit Panya, whose compensation fee was £600,000. A price I was happy to pay for a winger I know well, after he played for my Panathinaikos side in FM21.
Yves Dabila ousted Nani to partner Grégoire Amiot in central defence, while Ivaylo Chochev and Ignacio Antonio immediately dropped into our midfield three.
Oberdan Ramos Silva is a lively 18-year old Perfectionist Brazilian attacking midfielder. He is someone we will no doubt hear about over the next couple of years.
In terms of player performance, Yves Dabila was our strongest defender. Lucas Di Yorio‘s goals were crucial. Norbert Balogh continues to be a hugely useful option from the bench on either the left flank or up front.
Defensive Performance is a combination of interceptions, tackles and headers won per 90, plus an adjusted average match rating. I’d love to include blocks and clearances, but FM doesn’t give us columns for these despite them being calculated by the game.
Other competitions
As previously mentioned, this was our first opportunity to play in the UEFA Champions League group stage.
Last year we fell at the very first qualifying hurdle and ended up in the UEFA Europa Conference League, but this year we got to the big competition properly.
Seeing off Budućnost Podgorica, Molde (yes, again!), Ludogarets and my beloved Glasgow Rangers, we finally managed to get into the group stages.
Given that tough qualification route, I had hoped we would have one of the slightly less deadly group draws.
There was no such luck.
Incredibly, although we of course finished rock bottom of that group. We finished with 3 draws and 3 defeats. Two 1-1 draws with Italian giants Juventus and a 1-1 home draw against Manchester United meant that we could hold our heads high, knowing that although we were out; we had punched way above our weight among the glitz and glamour of Europe’s elite.
So what about the Hungarian domestic cup, the Magyar Kupa? Two years in a row we had been dumped out at the semi-final stage by Ferencvaros. This time, our giant rivals actually went out in the 5th round, and avoiding them ultimately led to us lifting the trophy. A comfortable 3-0 win in the final against ZTE.
New staff
In short, the lovable and loyal Jimmy Adjovi-Boco moved on from Honvéd and was replaced by Stéphane Saillant. Just a natural upgrade in the Director of Football role. It’s nothing personal Jimmy, I promise.
We also hired a new Head of Youth Development. I could give you a thousand guesses and you’d never guess who. Seriously.
Of course. Who else?! It’s none other than Irish Stoke City midfield stalwart Glenn Whelan. I was surprised to see Glenn in the staff search, but as an upgrade on our previous HoYD, coupled with his Professional reputation, it was a no-brainer for Glenn Árnason to bring in his Irish namesake.
His first youth intake wasn’t bad at all. Four elite talents? I’ll take that every year please, Mr Whelan!
Hall of Fame watch
As discussed in the last post, relative over-performance early in this save has made me pivot my series goals to include attempting to produce some Puskás-esque Hungarian youth products along with looking for manager Glenn Árnason to rise up the two most relevant Hall of Fame categories he is eligible for.
This is the chart for Icelandic nationality managers and the chart for managers who have managed in Hungary.
There is some good news in this space. After this double-winning campaign and adventure in Europe, Árnason has risen to 5th in the Icelandic Hall of Fame, while entering the Hungarian nation HoF in 8th.
Onwards and upwards!
End of 2023/2024 (season three) review
What’s next?
After tearing up the tactical system ahead of this campaign, I’ll be sticking with our Total Football approach for the time being.
This summer it’s a case of trimming the fat, and seeing if we can upgrade in the positions we have filled already.
Iconic winger Lukács Bőle has already announced his retirement at age 33. Backup goalkeeper Filip Gacevski is also moving on. Returning from loan former first-choice CB pairing Bence Batik (30) and Botond Baráth (32) may be exiting too.
As such, we have six players arriving at the end of the season.
There is an Argentinian winger, 22, who looks like a bundle of tricks (Federico Versaci from Vélez), a solid full-back who had previously spent nearly seven years at the club (Endre Botka, 30, from Fehérvár) and another Thai winger who looks like an incredible steal at £850k (Suphanat Mueanta, 21, from Buriram United).
None of that matters however, in comparison to the arrival of a player I know will be my signing of the summer.
Anybody who followed my Everywhere Else blog series last year, or who interacts with me on Slack will probably know who I am about to announce.
It might have taken until summer 2024, but THIS IS HAPPENING at Honvéd and I couldn’t be more excited…
It’s only the greatest number 9 in the history of football, Tomáš Chorý! He bagged 100 league goals in 100 league games for me last edition at Panathinaikos. Will he live up to expectations this time around? Time will tell…
Next up might be the end of season review for season four (24/25) or I may do another post in the meantime focusing on the journey so far with maybe some more in-depth analysis, we’ll see.
Let me know if that’s something you’d like to read! Otherwise I’ll see you at the end of next season.
Thanks for reading.
FM Stag