A midweek round was played in the Simple Women’s League, with our team hosting Szekszárdi WFC. The Tolna side went into the round bottom of the table, but based on the pre-match expectations anything but an easy contest awaited Balázs Dörnyei’s team, who had won 3–0 away to Újpest in the previous round.
With the match played on Wednesday, our academy players created a fantastic atmosphere and supported the girls throughout. We took the lead in the fifth minute when Franciska Simon found the net following a free-kick (1–0). Our 22-year-old defender had now scored for the third time this season, after also finding the net against MTK Budapest and Újpest FC. Midway through the first half we came close to doubling our advantage: in the 18th minute Róth fought for the ball and set up Szilvási, whose falling effort crashed against the crossbar. Two minutes later Vachter was through and although our leading scorer appeared to take the ball brilliantly around the goalkeeper, Fehér produced a fine save. In the 27th minute Vachter again broke the offside line, but the Tolna goalkeeper positioned herself well once more. After just over half an hour, Szilvási shot from 16 metres in front of goal and the visiting goalkeeper had to stretch fully to turn the ball away from the corner.
Szekszárd first threatened seriously in the 35th minute: Katona delivered an excellent cross, our defenders headed the ball out but could not fully clear, and Jáhn shot over the crossbar.
Our opponents improved somewhat in the second half but for a long time could not create a major chance, while we came out on the wrong side of several questionable situations. In the 59th minute Vachter was brought down inside the penalty area, but the referee’s whistle remained silent. Then in the 74th minute Mónika Gelb carried the ball across the face of our defensive line before lifting a beautiful effort into the far top corner (1–1). In the remaining time our team pushed honestly for the winner and it looked as though our efforts might be rewarded. In the 89th minute, after another penalty-looking situation, Horváthová was pulled down inside the box, but once again no spot-kick was awarded.
Our team next play on November 1 in round 9 of the Simple Women’s League, away in Pécs, before hosting Viktória FC at the Academy a week later.
SIMPLE WOMEN’S LEAGUE 2025/26, ROUND 8
BUDAPEST HONVÉD FC–Szekszárdi WFC 1–1 (1–0)
Budapest Honvéd Akadémia. 200 spectators. Referee: Kitti Tóth (Ágoston Kovács, Flóra Török).
Honvéd: Whitmore – Csáki, Sain, Simon, Krisztin – Koszo (Horváthová, 84.), Róth (Földvári, 62.), Bokor, Vas – Szilvási (Cakovic, 70.), Vachter. Head coach: Balázs Dörnyei
Szekszárd: Fehér – Kehrer, Jáhn, Hodászi (Kágyi K., 63.), Mucsi – Katona (Schell, 64.), Filep, Kágyi Á., Gelb – Nagy-Cseke (Egyed, – at half-time), Miszlai (Sovány, 63.). Head coach: Attila Vágó
G: Simon (5.), and Gelb (76.)
Balázs Dörnyei, head coach:
First of all, I would like to thank the boys for coming out to this match — it was a great feeling for the girls to be able to play in this kind of atmosphere. They are warmly welcome any time; we are genuinely very grateful and will try to return the support as well. We should have won this match by several goals: four or five times we were completely through one-on-one with the goalkeeper. At the same time, you cannot always create scoring chances with 90 percent efficiency, and no one else gets into positions like these either. Today we did not make good decisions in those situations, but we had more than enough opportunities to score a second, third, fourth, fifth and even sixth goal. That is football, although over the long term it is always fair. If we are honest, we have also had matches where the opposition had more chances but we still managed to fight out a draw — in some cases against a better team. Today we were the better side, but we could not show that in the result. A positive is that we have taken a big step forward in our play and improved in creating chances. At the same time, it would have been important to keep a clean sheet — we could not do that today. The opposition found a goal and after that our play became somewhat hurried. Overall, I liked the first half more than the second, even though we should have had much more space in the second half to create chances; we simply did not make good enough decisions in the opposition’s defensive third.
