Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marton Nikolic will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Haladas the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Furkan Demir 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Haladas will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Haladas would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marton Nikolic will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Haladas the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Furkan Demir 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Haladas will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mate Sallai will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Haladas the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Simón Bodnar 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zoltan Bese trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Zoltan Bese 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Haladas will try again when the window opens; Ferencvaros may not be selling by then.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Frederik Tosku was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Haladas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Haladas, another week without a signature from Frederik Tosku.
Haladas opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Márk Szécsi stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
In brief
BoardroomThe Haladas production line keeps running
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Haladas can pretend not to have heard.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Haladas have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Furkan Demir and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at Haladas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roland Dibusz 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 have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Haladas will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Haladas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Furkan Demir 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Zoltan Bese.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Tamas Szoboszlai left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad27 Dec 2027
The division's best last weekend was a Haladas man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Muhamed Tijani was the best thing in any of them.
In brief
SquadSimón Bodnar, 20, is the weekend’s best young player
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Haladas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Haladas are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Furkan Demir 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.
At 20 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Haladas will try not to make too much of it.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Puskas Akademia scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Position 2, 28 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Haladas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Simón Bodnar is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Haladas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Haladas 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Haladas would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until David Lisztes signs something — a contract at Haladas or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Haladas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Tamas Szoboszlai could afford to be generous.
Furkan Demir 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Haladas has been clear about where Rufo stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Márk Szécsi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Haladas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The mood at Haladas has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
4 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.
Furkan Demir 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.
A 2‑2 draw with Diosgyor leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Tamas Szoboszlai chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Zoltan Bese
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Simón Bodnar did not need any: 7.85, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
8 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Simón Bodnar has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Haladas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Nemanja Žunić 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 medical room confirms 19 days on the sidelines for Enrique López, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Zsolt Nagy 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.
Something was said to Nemanja Žunić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Roland Paku is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Debrecen in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.