Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Soroksár will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Márk Bencze is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matija Grek trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nenad Nikić signs something — a contract at Soroksár or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Soroksár lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Soroksár have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nenad Nikić 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.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tamás Kiss was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mirsad Miraljemović 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.
74 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Soroksár lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Nenad Nikić 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.
Dawoud Assoumani is 17, and Soroksár have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Soroksár lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Nenad Nikić 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kornel Bachula has just signed for Soroksár, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gergő Pálinkás was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Soroksár asked and Kozármisleny said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Loevan Charros is 18, and Soroksár have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Gergely Tumma's mistake
The dugoutMatija Grek asks for a word with the manager
91 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Soroksár lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Soroksár people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Soroksár can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Soroksár this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Soroksár have made the call to Crvena Zvezda. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Nobody at Soroksár 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 99 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
He is going to Diosgyor, the club has $660.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Everybody at Soroksár saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The name of Norbert Gálfi has come up in conversations Soroksár were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Soroksár training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Márk Bencze 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.
Ádám Holczer damages knee ligaments — 107 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 107 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Nenad Nikić 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 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. Voždovac have kept their man, and Soroksár go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Soroksár are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
115 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Soroksár lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Soroksár, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nenad Nikić 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Soroksár training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gergő Pálinkás 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
Gergely Tumma is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Soroksár know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Ádám Holczer damages knee ligaments — 122 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 122 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Soroksár can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Soroksár this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ujpest have kept their man, and Soroksár go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Vukota Isakovski has moved up it.
Ádám Holczer damages knee ligaments — 131 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 131 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Soroksár had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Mirsad Miraljemović 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Soroksár training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gergő Pálinkás 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nenad Nikić signs something — a contract at Soroksár or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Soroksár 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Tamás Takács a promise
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Soroksár this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Vukota Isakovski has come out of that comparison in the side, and Soroksár have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 91 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Vukota Isakovski did not need any: 8.29, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Nenad Nikić 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.
2‑3 to Kozármisleny, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Matija Grek 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 2‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at Soroksár 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Soroksár will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Soroksár lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Soroksár this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Soroksár training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gergő Pálinkás 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.
Tiszakécske next, and one man in the Soroksár dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Soroksár 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.
In brief
The dugoutGyörgy Bora knocks on the manager's door
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Kisvárda go through and Soroksár go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Nenad Nikić 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 90. Kisvárda had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Soroksár lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
An order from above at Soroksár: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Nenad Nikić 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Soroksár training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gergő Pálinkás 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
He is 18 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 38 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Nenad Nikić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Soroksár training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gergő Pálinkás 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then BVSC-Zugló scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
14 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player 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 Soroksár this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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.” Dominik Nagy chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The words a physio says slowly. 52 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vukota Isakovski is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Nenad Nikić 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 Gergő Pálinkás was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.