Our team travelled to Baja for the third round of the MOL Hungarian Cup. Maurizio Jacobacci made six changes to the starting line-up from Győr, bringing in Tomás Tujvel, Branko Pauljević, Oleksandr Safranov, Pablo Garcia, Tamás Somogyi and Patrik Pinte. The hosts from Baja approached the match in an extremely sporting manner: the club provided 500 tickets for our supporters, a significant proportion of which were sold for the game.
In the seventh minute Tamás Somogyi sent our new signing Reda Eddarraj, who had also scored in Győr, through at exactly the right moment. After a fine solo run, however, he fired over the bar. Barely a minute later, after an excellent cross from Dominik Csontos, Patrik Pinte put the ball back into the middle and Tamás Somogyi arrived with perfect timing to head under the crossbar, scoring the first Hungarian Cup goal of his career. Five minutes later the move again started with Dominik Csontos, who played the ball into the path of Pablo Garcia bursting forward down the left. After our Spanish defender's cross, Eddarraj tried his luck again, but his shot went over the goal.
After a quarter of an hour the action was again taking place in front of the Baja goal. Dominik Csontos curled an excellent ball into the middle and Patrik Pinte arrived to ruthlessly fire it into the home net. In the 23rd minute several players could have scored our third after another Csontos corner; Oleksandr Safranov perhaps came closest, but the Baja goalkeeper was again in position and made the save.
Just under fifteen minutes later our pressing worked superbly again. Tamás Somogyi won the ball at the end of it and then unleashed an unstoppable shot into the net from 18 metres. In the 31st minute Somogyi again won possession in the opposition half and set up Adi Alic arriving to his right, whose shot struck the left post. In the 36th minute Baja almost scored from what was essentially their only serious chance. Martin Berta broke away down the right and delivered perfectly onto the head of Dominik Baladin, forcing Tomás Tujvel into a huge save. There was still more first-half drama. Three minutes later the ball went from Dominik Csontos to Tamás Somogyi and then Reda Eddarraj, and our Moroccan player scored his first Hungarian Cup goal, placing the ball with pinpoint accuracy into the bottom-left corner.
By the end of the half, any meaningful question about the outcome had been settled. Asier Garcia, who replaced the injured Patrik Pinte, played Adi Alic through and, after a feint, he calmly rolled the ball past Sztruhák and into the Baja net.
Both head coaches made changes after the break, while we noticeably reduced the tempo and the main objective in the second half became avoiding more serious injuries. As a result, we created our first major chance only in the 68th minute, but it immediately produced a goal. Pekár sent Pablo Garcia bursting forward down the left through, he crossed into the middle and found Asier Garcia. The shot of the 20-year-old Spanish forward was blocked by the Baja defence, but the ball fell to Tamás Somogyi – and on this day that did not bode well for the hosts. Our 17-year-old midfielder smashed another goal into the Baja net to complete his third of the match and therefore his hat-trick.
For the final half-hour Maurizio Jacobacci also sent on a favourite of the Baja crowd, local-born Szilveszter Hangya. Our experienced defender played with tremendous enthusiasm throughout his time on the pitch and got his reward in the 71st minute. He was fouled inside the penalty area and referee Árpád Jakab pointed to the spot. The player who had been fouled took the penalty himself and made no mistake, blasting the ball straight down the middle to set the final score.
We remained in confident control for the rest of the match and could even have increased our advantage further. Tamás Somogyi came close to scoring his fourth, but there were no more goals, so we advanced to Round 4 of the MOL Hungarian Cup with a 7–0 victory.
M4 Sport will broadcast the draw for the next round live after the final match of the round. Round 4 will be played in the week of October 28, on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Before then, however, our team have a league match to play: in Round 8 of the OTP Bank Liga we travel to Felcsút. The fixture will also be the opening match of the round and will be played on Friday, September 18 from 19:30.
MOL HUNGARIAN CUP, ROUND 3, 2026/27
Bajai LC–KISPEST–HONVÉD FC 0–7 (0–5)
Baja, Városi Sporttelep, 1,914 spectators. Referee: Árpád Jakab (Dániel Sinkovicz, Tamás Vargha).
Baja: Sztruhák – Knap, Gyurkits (Mezőfi – at half-time), Rockentstein (Götli, 74.), Béla, Bálity, Németi (Szilágyi, 74.), Baladin, Fehérváry (Pohankovics, 59.), Berta, Kincse (Horváth D., 68.).
HONVÉD: Tujvel – Pauljevic, Baki (Szabó A. – at half-time), Safronov, P. García – Somogyi Á., Csontos (Pekár, – at half-time) – Pinte (A. García, 40.), Somogyi T., Eddarraj (Hangya, 59.) – Alic (Kántor, 59.).
Goals: Somogyi T. (8., 29., 68.), Pinte (15.), Eddarraj (39.), Alic (45.), Hangya (73. – penalty).
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