This is post nine of a wider series. A series for FM22.
“That’s a record run of 182 league games in a row without loss, and counting.”
Season 2026/2027
This post is going to be a little different. We’ll take a deep dive into Honvéd’s transfer business; good, bad and indifferent over the past six years.
But first, the 2026/2027 season has just finished. Was it business as usual in the league? Oh yes it was.
The Magyar Kupa was also retained to make it a record four years in a row. This year it was a dramatic 95th minute hat-trick-getting goal from Gianluca Scamacca that defeated Debrecen 3-2 in the dying minutes of an end-to-end final.
Another invincible domestic season means that it is now six OTP Bank Liga titles in a row for Árnason’s side. Five seasons since they last lost a single league game. That’s a record run of 182 league games in a row without loss, and counting.
The UEFA Champions League campaign was a similar story to previous years. Dunajská Streda, Shakhter Soligorsk and RB Salzburg were squeezed past to get into the group stage for a fourth year running. Lazio, Bayern Munich and Monaco (again) awaited. An incredible 4-2 home win against the German giants plus an impressive 3-1 away victory at Monaco were unfortunately the only two wins of the group stage. A third place finish meant another drop into the UEFA Europa League knockouts.
Basel were beaten home and away to move through to the second Knockout phase. This returned us to exactly where we met our exit last season against Sevilla. It was unfortunately to happen again, this time at the hands of Inter Milan. Two 5-3 defeats meant a 10-6 losing aggregate score. Imagine scoring six goals against Inter across two legs and still being beaten by four goals. Is this our ceiling? Would we ever get any better than third in the Champions League group stage and the Second Knockout Round of the Europa League? What a frustrating end to our European adventure for another year.
We have improved our European ranking from 212th in 2021 to 41st in 2027. Glenn Árnason is now finally recognised at the top of both the Hall of Fame for managers in Hungary and for Icelanders. Even the OTP Bank Liga has risen 6 places to be the 15th most reputable domestic league competition in Europe, bagging an extra continental competition qualification place in the process. Lastly, we’ve made massive improvements to our staffing, with a new Director of Football and Head of Youth Development brought in to complement our rising stature (sorry Glenn Whelan). We’ve also grown club finances from a debt of £873,000 in the red with a weekly wage budget of £58,000 in 2021, to an available transfer balance of £90million (after some business completed and budget adjustments shortly after the £50m screenshot in the slides below) with £600,000 a week available for wages if needed in 2027.
How much further could we take Honvéd in time?
I’ll hand over to the main part of today’s article by finally mentioning that we also sold our two best players this season.
Oberdan Ramos Silva and Tomáš Chorý are now gone!
More on that later.
Transfer Review
In six years at the club, Glenn Árnason has signed 43 players for a combined value of just £7.1million. This works out at an average of just £165,000 transfer cost per signing. Not bad for winning 10 trophies and topping two Halls of Fame. He has also generated £50million in player sales in that time. 81 players have left the Bozsik Aréna from 2021 to 2027.
Let’s review every new player who has joined the club during Árnason’s tenure. As always, click to open the below image in a new tab, then click on it again to make the text large enough to read.
Notable Business
With the light-touch review over and done with. Let’s dive in more detail into three notable incomings or outgoings that shifted the direction of our Hungarian journey. Screenshots of players vary when they were taken.
Lucas Di Yorio – Cerro Largo – Free
Despite arriving in the summer of 2022 without much fanfare, this Argentinian striker transformed Árnason’s Honvéd fairly early on. Although the Icelander had led the club to the league title in his first season (the 21/22 campaign) and veteran striker Martin Eppel had scored a hatful, the club needed a new attacking focal point. Eppel was creeping towards his mid 30s and fresh legs were required. Lucas Di Yorio exploded onto the scene with 49 league goals in just 62 appearances across his first two seasons. It is no coincidence that these two years were the first campaigns of the current five year unbeaten stretch of Árnason’s reign. A rotational role in his third season after the arrival and emergence of future legend Tomáš Chorý meant that the Argentine eventually left Budapest to sign for Ludogorets for first team football in January 2026 for £1million. He has never since repeated his goal-scoring streak since leaving Honvéd, but will be fondly remembered as an early days cult hero.
Overall record – 128 appearances, 88 goals, 35 assists
Oberdan Ramos Silva – Palmeiras – Free
After being released by Palmeiras at 18, Oberdan Ramos Silva was picked up by Honvéd as a prospect with bags of potential, but no clear pathway to the first team, with a tough and reliable midfield trio of Ivaylo Chochev, Ignacio Antonio and Igor Maksimović already cemented as regulars. That said, the Brazilian continued to develop and eventually became impossible for Glenn Árnason to ignore. The perfect combination between technical ability, physical endurance and mental strength, Silva eventually moved on to Bayern Munich for £25million, which was boosted to £45million total income including add-ons that have since been fully paid. The midfield orchestrator bossed Honvéd’s midfield for nearly three years and the money generated by his sale has allowed the club to completely overhaul their infrastructure, even to begin planning to take ownership of the Bozsik Aréna from the local government in 2028.
Overall record – 136 appearances, 26 goals, 57 assists
As an addition to this, I managed to replace Ramos Silva the day he left for Bayern with Paraguayan Anderson Vélez. He might not quite be at the Brazilian’s level, but for £600,000 (vs £45m) I’d argue he is more than an adequate replacement!
Tomáš Chorý – Viktoria Plzeň – £56,000
Rumour has it that Glenn Árnason had tried to sign Tomáš Chorý from Viktoria Plzeň 18 months before his eventual arrival in Hungary. An ill-fated six months ensued at Sparta Prague instead, before he returned to Plzeň to see out the 2023/24 campaign. He joined Honvéd for just £56k on the 1st of July 2024 and remained at the club before a £1million move to MLS side Austin on the 4th of May 2027. In those three seasons, his record was absolutely outrageous. An aerial monster. A clinical finisher. An aggressive and hard-working powerhouse. Simply the greatest signing of the entire story. We only moved him on as I could see his powers starting to wane marginally as he headed towards his 33rd birthday. We sold him as it’s better to burn out than fade away, as they say.
Overall record – 144 appearances, 184 goals, 21 assists
What’s next?
In a Chorý and Ramos Silva-less Honvéd in 2027, the fight for European progression continues.
The iconic TC9’s exit was supposed to mean a step up for Italian target man Gianluca Scamacca, but in breaking news…he has gone home to Atalanta for £20million in the last day or so. Gianluca was a free signing who had bagged 50 goals in two seasons mainly from the bench, often when Chorý started to tire in games and needed replaced with fresh legs. The stage was set to be the dawn of the Scamacca era in 27/28 but now fans need to pivot and find a new attacking icon. The offer was too good to turn down and he had his heart set on it.
With the squad almost ready to go for another season, Árnason picked up two Ivorian prospects from ASEC Mimosas for a combined £775k, and I think they look like high-ceiling, promising purchases.
Englishman Stuart Griffiths is now back from a loan spell at Ipswich and will compete with Ryan Mmaee (who I originally only bought as a rotational option from Ferencvaros as he was their key striker for the past six years) for the number 9 spot.
With Glenn Árnason ready to face another season, entering his 7th year at Honvéd, time will tell how much road he has left to run in this Hungarian adventure.
We go again!
End of 2026/2027 (season six) review
Thanks for reading.
FM Stag