Shama Deadman is about to begin the sixth season of his managerial career, as our journeyman coach kicks off a new era with Győr in the Hungarian second division.
In Part 22, Shama introduced us to his new team, and welcomed back a few old friends from his past. He didn’t have much success at his previous clubs – Cambrian & Clydach in Wales, or Espinho in Portugal – but will another change of scenery deliver a change in fortunes?
Today’s chapter will take us through the first three months of the 2025/2026 NB II season, from August all the way to October. Will Győr enjoy a strong start in their bid to return to Hungary’s top tier, or will the new manager make a right goulash of things? Let’s find out…
AUGUST 2025
Ahead of my first month of Hungarian league action, club chairman Dávid Takacs (aka Al Győr) had some news to share about our season ticket sales. I’d love to know who that one supporter who didn’t renew their ticket is!
A typical home crowd at ETO Park is around 1,300, but more than 2,000 fans turned up for our season-opener against Nyíregyháza, who finished 5th last season and also had a new manager. Could we get our new era off to a winning start and deliver fresh hope to our long-suffering supporters?
Yeah… erm… not really. We did actually make a very quick start, as Portuguese left-back Simão Rocha – who never scored at all in his only season at Espinho – banged in a long-distance stunner just 18 minutes into his Győr debut! Sadly, Rocha’s rocket would be for nothing.
Goalkeeper Gergő Rácz made a complete mess of an opposition free-kick in the 39th minute, and then conceded two more careless goals in the final six minutes to throw the match away. A shocking collapse, and a 3-1 home defeat. That was not in the script.
We brought in a new right-back a day later, with Bence Nagy signing on loan from Debrecen. He’s brave, determined, is fairly athletic, and should provide good competition for Attila Szabados. I just hope I don’t get Bence confused with our left-back Barnabás Nagy, or we could be in trouble!
34-year-old Péter Szappanos went in goal for our next fixture, as we bounced back by beating local rivals Gyirmót 3-1 on their patch. Star attackers Ervin Taha and Cyril Nebo were among the scorers, though captain Norbert Kundrák suffered a worrying ACL injury that would put him out for about a month.
We then turned on the style, with back-to-back 3-0 victories. Milán Tóth tore Tatabánya apart with a second-half brace from the left wing, but he was outdone by 17-year-old right-winger János Géringer, who scored a hat-trick at Ajka – in just his third senior match.
Géringer couldn’t follow it up in our next game, but to be fair, it was against early frontrunners Debrecen. Our attack hardly got going, and it was only thanks to Szappanos that we managed to shut Loki out and grind out a draw.
The Debrecen game was my first with a new assistant manager. Former Hungary Under-19s defender Ferenc Fodor is still very raw as a coach, but he likes possession football and is a good disciplinarian. Ferenc can speak decent English too, having picked it up while playing for Oldham’s reserves as a teenager. I hope he still has James Tarkowski’s phone number.
Szeged-GA were our next opponents. After losing focus to give away a goal in the very first minute, 19-year-old midfielder Nenad Radović bounced back two minutes later with a powerful leveller from the edge of the box. But then we collapsed again, as Szappanos lost his way after the break and we fell to a 4-2 loss.
I gave Rácz another chance between the posts in our next home match, against a dispirited Szolnok side who were down in 15th after losing four in a row. So how did it go, Gergő?
I don’t think any more needs to be said.
After posting match ratings of 6.3 and 6.4, I was already done with Rácz. I subbed him off after the third Szolnok goal (Szappanos conceded a fourth before Nebo pulled one back) and then told him to sling his hook. Without a doubt THE worst goalkeeper I have EVER managed!
It hadn’t quite been a terrible start to my Győr reign, but we needed to find some consistency quickly. Even more importantly, we needed a new goalkeeper.
SEPTEMBER 2025
I repeat – WE NEEDED A NEW GOALKEEPER.
That mistake basically condemned us to a third straight defeat, against Sényő. In truth, none of our defenders could come out of this with their heads held high, but there’s only so much they can do when Szappanos makes a howler like that!
I’d seen enough. It was time to bring in a more competent custodian – and I was prepared to spend serious money.
Let me introduce you to Svetoslav Vutsov. The 23-year-old joined us for an initial £100,000 from Slavia Sofia, where he was transfer-listed by request despite their recent return to Bulgaria’s top division. Vutsov is a commanding keeper with very good reflexes and the potential to become a leading NB I goalie. If I’ve played my cards right, he could be our number 1 for a long time to come.
Vutsov kept a clean sheet on a quiet home debut against Paks, but some poor finishing at the other end meant we toiled to a 0-0 draw. Things didn’t get any better at Budafok, who had only two shots on target but managed to beat Svetoslav with one of them. Our attackers had another nightmare as we plummeted to 14th after a third straight game without scoring.
Fortunately, the Magyar Kupa Round 1 draw gave us the ideal opportunity to hit form again. We were too strong for third-division side Mosonmagyaróvár, as a spectacular chip from winger Bálint Szabo – in between headers from Américo Pereira and József Windecker – saw us comfortably through to Round 2.
But then we went to Siófok, where it all went horribly wrong in the first four minutes. Nebo had a penalty saved before the hosts countered to take an early lead. Fortunately, Cyril quickly recovered to equalise with a clinical far-post header from rising star Géringer’s free-kick. That spurred us on to a magnificent 3-1 comeback win, which Géringer completed with this screamer.
A new star was born, and we were back in the top half! Still some way adrift of the frontrunners, mind.
OCTOBER 2025
The good times rolled on with another away win, against an out-of-sorts Szentlőrinc side who finished with NINE men due to injuries and ill discipline. Belgian midfielder Lars Dendoncker scored his first two goals for Győr – first from a chaotic goalmouth scramble just before half-time, and then from a stunning free-kick. Géringer also netted a free-kick late on to really rub salt into Szentlőrinc’s wounds.
A 3-0 rout, then, but it didn’t all go our own way. We had our own injury troubles early on – and they were pretty big.
Losing Ivan Kalyuzhnyi (8 games, 4 assists) for three weeks was bad enough… but being without Nebo for a month forced us to change our gameplan slightly. After mainly playing in attacking midfield, captain Kundrák would need to move up front for the time being.
We had to battle for our next two wins on home soil. It took us 93 minutes to get past Soroksár before a fantastic long ball from Tóth sent fellow winger Bence Sós clean through to chip in his first goal for the club. We then trailed lowly Pécs 1-0 at half-time, but Kundrák led an impressive second-half comeback with a penalty and a header from Rocha’s free-kick.
That made it five wins in a row, but then our luck deserted us at Kaposvár. Taha did well to get us back level shortly after 16-year-old defender Dávid Kiss gave away a controversial penalty midway through the second period. Kundrák then found the net again from a clever flick-on by Géringer, who was sadly called offside.
After that, some sloppy defending from a Kaposvár corner saw the hosts restore their lead, which they doubled in stoppage time for a 3-1 lead. Another second-half collapse, and another bad day in goal for Szappanos, who was deputising for an injured Vutsov.
Having moved up to 7th after the previous game, the Kaposvár defeat knocked us back down to 10th.
Vutsov returned in goal when we finished October just as we started it, comfortably beating Szentlőrinc 3-0 away from home. Kundrák got us off the mark in the 7th minute before centre-back Alex Szábo‘s header and Taha’s strike powered us through Round 2 of the Magyar Kupa. Every player in our starting XI got a match rating above 7.0, and nobody in Szentlőrinc’s got higher than 6.5, which just shows how dominant we were.
Our reward was a place in Round 3 after the winter break, and a home tie against one of Hungary’s traditional giants. Újpest are top of the NB I and would take some stopping… but hey, I don’t need to worry about them for another three months!
With a third of the season completed, now’s probably a good time to look at some statistics to see where we’re performing well – and where we could use some tactical tweaking.
Even at this stage of the season, the efficiency charts look very interesting. Only Debrecen create as many scoring chances on average than us, though they have been a little more clinical than us. I don’t think we’ve been particularly wasteful – our conversion rate is still just above 10%, which is the absolute minimum I expect.
That said, we need to get more out of our star man Nebo. In 12 games so far, Cyril has scored three goals from an xG of 4.16, though that stat is distorted by the fact he’s scored one penalty and missed another. He does see plenty of the ball but a vast majority of his shots are low-quality and have little chance of even testing the keeper.
I’m thinking that maybe Nebo isn’t a target man after all. That role does utilise his aerial ability and strength, but it also neglects the pace and work ethic our number 9 has. Once he’s recovered from his injury, I’ll try him out as a pressing forward, or maybe even alter my tactics so he has the freedom to be an out-and-out striker.
Meanwhile, we have major defensive issues. We don’t have many shots against us, but when we do, we concede at a rate of one goal in every six shots. Our centre-backs and goalkeeper need greater support, so to that end, I am switching the attacking left wing-back to a more conservative full-back role. We are also defending narrower to try and limit our opponents’ long-shot opportunities.
I’m also ready to bin the 3-5-2. Instead of being a more defensively solid alternative to our usual 4-2-3-1, it’s just inviting our opponents to attack us, giving them an average of one chance every 26 minutes (as opposed to one every 40 minutes against our main tactic).
Lastly, I want to look at how our best youth prospects have developed in the first-team. Though naturally a striker, Géringer has thrived as an inverted right-winger, where he can use his pace and technique to full effect. János already has five goals to his name and is developing very well, so there’s every chance he could be a regular starter out wide by season’s end.
Tibor Fehér has been less spectacular in defence this season but is also coming along nicely. After making a few costly mistakes at right-back early in the campaign, he put in a couple of solid 7/10 performances at centre-half in October. That may be where the 18-year-old’s long-term future lies, though he needs to improve his heading and positioning before I can trust him to start regularly.
We have another potential star centre-back in Dávid Kiss, but the 16-year-old has endured a rocky start to the campaign. Kiss has averaged 6.43 in three league matches – and even in his ‘best’ performance against Tatabánya, he struggled to win headers or retain possession. I suspect Dávid isn’t handling the pressure well, and he may be better off playing reserve or youth football for a while longer.
So, mixed results in Shama’s first few months at Győr. I hope you’ve enjoyed some of the mini-analysis at the end of this chapter. It makes a change from the usual monthly summaries, and if you’d like to see more of that in the future, let me know.
Anyway, I’ll be back next Monday with another chapter. Can Győr fire themselves up the NB II table over the winter months, or will they be frozen out of the promotion picture?
Thanks for reading!
Fuller FM 
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