Gavin Cooney

FOR THE FIRST time in eight years, Ferencvaros are reckoning with not winning the Hungarian league title. 

Robbie Keane’s side are second in the league, three points behind leaders ETO Gyor with three games remaining, having lost the top-of-the-table shootout last Sunday. Ferencvaros also trail the goal difference stakes by four.

Keane’s side did exact a measure of immediate revenge by beating Gyor on penalties in the Hungarian Cup semi-final in midweek, but their copyright claim on the league title is now at risk of lapsing. 

Given the league title is the minimum expectation of each season at Ferencvaros, Keane may face some uncomfortable scrutiny if they do indeed finish second.

But scrutiny does not necessarily mean his job will be at risk. 

“There will be a lot of pressure, but not that they need to sack him”, says Hungarian football reporter, Tom Mortimer, pointing to several different factors in Keane’s favour. 

The first is his popularity with the fan base: while some are not enamoured with what Mortimer describes as Keane’s “conservative” style of play, Keane’s touchline emotion and public comments have endeared him to a supporter base lately inured to placid and aloof tacticos. He has also delivered a cup final appearance and while punching well above the club’s weight in Europe.

Ferencvaros finished 12th in the Europa League’s league phase, going unbeaten until they were soundly beaten by Nottingham Forest in the final game. They progressed by Ludogorets in the first knockout round and then beat Braga 2-0 in the home leg of their last-16 tie before succumbing 4-0 in the return leg. Braga have since progressed to the semi-finals of the competition, adding a further bit of sheen to Ferencvaros’ adventure. 

Mortimer likens their run to Bodo/Glimt’s through the Champions League, which came to a shuddering halt against Portuguese opposition – Sporting in their case – a day earlier. 

There is another reason as to how to explain the chasm between Ferencvaros’ league form and their cup performances. Ahead of the league season, the Hungarian football authorities introduced a new quota rule demanding that every team have at least five Hungarian players on the pitch at all time, with a view to improving the standard of domestic players and ultimately the national team.

Ferencvaros, with 18 different nationalities represented in their first-team squad and only 13 Hungarian players, were by some distance the most affected by the ruling: they fought it tooth and nail but were ultimately forced to abide by it. Keane has therefore had to labour in the league without being allowed select his best team. (The rule has oddly not been introduced in the cup.) 

To compound all of this, Ferencvaros sold arguably their two best players midway through the season, both of whom are Hungarian: Alex Toth joined Bournemouth, while Barnabas Varga – he of the stunning long-range goal against Ireland in November – left for AEK Athens, for whom he has averaged a goal every second game to help them to a commanding position in the race for the Greek title.

Keane replaced Varga with Croatian forward Franko Kovacevic, whom you may remember scoring twice against Shamrock Rovers for Celje in the early rounds of the Conference League. Five goals in 11 league appearances marks a respectable return. 

Mortimer says the bigger post-season question may be as to whether Keane wants to continue with Ferencvaros in the context of the restrictive quota rule. There is also a wider uncertainty at play in Hungarian football, and what may happen to the sport and its lavish funding now that Viktor Orban has been voted out of power. In retrospect, the fraying of Orban’s power base now looks to have been foreshadowed by the five-player rule: the chairman of Ferencvaros, Gabor Kubatov, is a member of parliament for Orban’s Fidesz party, and yet could not prevent the introduction of a rule which hit his club particularly hard. 

Mortimer does not yet know how life after Orban will affect Hungarian domestic football, but expects there to be some change. Bundle all this with the persistent rumours linking Keane with the Celtic job and Keane may decide he has better options elsewhere. 

In the immediate term he has a scrap to win an eighth-straight title and maintain his winning record: he is seeking a third-straight league title of his own, having won the Israeli top flight with Maccabi Tel Aviv. 

All hope is not yet lost. Gyor face a difficult away test to third-placed Debrecen on Sunday evening, hours after Ferencvaros host fifth-placed Paks, who are admittedly only two points worse off than Debrecen.