Bálint Vécsei was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Paksi will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gergő Gyurkits is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Debrecen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dermane Karim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Debrecen will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Debrecen know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutTamás Batai knocks on the manager's door
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Debrecen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Daniil Sukhoruchko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Dermane Karim falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Yacouba Silué has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“I watch every Debrecen game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Paksi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Debrecen will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Debrecen know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 12 on 33 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Paksi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Paksi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 6.67, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gergő Gyurkits is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Balázs Tóth was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Debrecen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Levente Kurdics has, at Debrecen, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Botond Nyikos and Debrecen agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Adam Szoboszlai to a room that had heard them before.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Paksi, and it is not being withdrawn.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Paksi have done the hard part with Debrecen, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The shirt still fits. János Hegedűs is back at Paksi, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Barna Tóth was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paksi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
15 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
0‑0 against Zurich, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Daniil Sukhoruchko and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Dermane Karim falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Nobody at Debrecen will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout13 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Adam Szoboszlai was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Debrecen dressing room was either.
0‑4 against RAAL La Louviere. The honest reading is not that the players were poor; it is that the distance between this club and that one is currently measured in things money takes years to buy.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Up for the corner, and Dermane Karim delivers — 7.76
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Dermane Karim scored, was marked 7.76, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Dermane Karim was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Josua Mejías was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Debrecen, and it is not being withdrawn.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Debrecen will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 23 gone
That is the business done at Debrecen until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Debrecen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Debrecen asked and Arezzo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Gergő Tercza and Debrecen agree another 4 years.
Squad6 Sep 2027
12 new faces, and Debrecen are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Csákvár go through and Debrecen go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Debrecen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Debrecen can pretend not to have heard.
Ádám Lang was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Dermane Karim falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Moscow have kept their man, and Debrecen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Debrecen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Debrecen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Dermane Karim and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The name of Benedek Erdélyi has come up in conversations Debrecen were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Debrecen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Josua Mejías is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Levski have kept their man, and Debrecen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Diego Henrique is in the works
Transfer targetsA loan move for Borna Bošnjak is in the works
The deal with Lommel is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Debrecen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Debrecen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Blaž Bošković is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Levente Szabó and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Debrecen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fran Manzanara is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Debrecen, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ákos Szendrei has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutBotond Nyikos asks for a word with the manager