Thank you very much for joining me for the latest chapter of my FM21 series with journeyman coach Shama Deadman.
Part 31 took us through the first half of the 2027/2028 season, which marked Győr’s return to Hungary’s top division after a six-year absence. It really could not have gone much better, thanks largely to an English goal machine who has already built a strong following at ETO Park!
We now rejoin the story in the winter months, where Győr are hoping to keep the good times rolling – and maybe even secure their survival with time to spare! But with several clubs making admiring glances in the manager’s direction, is Shama about to have his head turned?
A WANTED MAN
To refresh your memory, Győr went into the winter break flying high in the NB I – and already more than a dozen points clear of relegation. Our first season back in the top flight was going beyond even our wildest expectations… and my performance as manager hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Just before we broke up for Christmas, I was surprised to hear Newcastle get in touch and offer me an interview.
The good news… Mike Ashley buggered off seven years ago. The bad news… the Magpies were 21st in the Championship, and at risk of dropping into League One. I really didn’t fancy taking such a high-risk job, especially when things were already going so smoothly in my current one.
[Also, just to remind you of my self-imposed challenge rules, I cannot take a job in England until I have won a league championship in another country first. -Chris]
I did, though, receive a couple of more tempting job interviews from the Bundesliga. The Austrian Bundesliga, that is.
These offers came from SV Ried (who were 12th and bottom) and TSV Hartberg (who were slightly higher in 9th). While I didn’t really fancy a relegation battle, I still attended the interviews out of courtesy.
I didn’t get either job anyway, as Ried and Hartberg eventually went for more local managers instead. Even so, it’s a positive that I would at least be considered by 3* reputation clubs if I left Győr – not that I will be leaving any time soon.
With six months to go until my contract expired, the Győr board offered me a new long-term deal. However, they didn’t want to increase my £2,200-per-week wages. Because of that, I decided to postpone contract talks until May, in the hope that we would continue to defy expectations and that the chairman would make me a better offer.
WINTER TRANSFER WINDOW
One man did get a new contract, though. Less than six months after arriving in Hungary, Louie Barry committed his long-term future to Győr, having scored nine goals in just 16 matches – including six in his last six games!
You see… when we signed Louie in July, his agent insisted on adding a £400,000 foreign club release clause to his contract. However, with the striker in such hot form, I was worried that an EFL club would activate that clause – and bring him back to England for less than double our initial £230,000 transfer fee. It made sense to give him a new deal that wiped away that clause, at the expense of an extra £500 per week.
We’ve also sold two players and signed a couple of replacements. So, let’s play a game of ‘before and after’!
After two-and-a-half years as Simão Rocha‘s understudy, left-back Barnabás Nagy asked to leave so that he could play more regular football. His contract was expiring in the summer, but I thought it made sense to sell him straight away to NB II high-flyers Vasas for £50,000. Nagy served us very well, but maybe the top flight was a step too far for him.
Let’s now Czech out his replacement – former Slavia Praha left-back Lubos Petr, who arrives on a free transfer. The 22-year-old lacks Nagy’s pace or crossing ability, but it was his incredible work ethic that really won me over. Given time to develop, I can see him replacing Rocha in the starting XI.
Vasas fancied another of our players, and I almost snapped their hands off when they offered us £100,000 for Norbert Földi. The young playmaker had featured sporadically for our first-team, but his limited ambition and poor passing ability was holding him back. Still, we’ve made a healthy profit on somebody we only signed as a free agent 18 months ago.
Újpest midfielder László Toman had already signed a pre-contract agreement to join us in the summer, but after selling Földi, we brought the transfer forward for just £22,000. Going by his decision-making, flair and technique, and the fact he’s still only 21… it feels like we’ve committed daylight robbery! Toman is a very exciting prospect who really could take this club to the next level.
JANUARY 2028
After the winter break, our friendly results were… okay, I guess.
We got a couple of decent but not emphatic wins against lower-league clubs. We were also 2-0 up at home to Polish visitors Wisła Kraków after 90 minutes, but inexplicably conceded twice in injury time to throw a surefire victory away.
But at least our new main man Barry was raring to go again, after netting a brace in our final friendly. Surely the Brummie would now continue his excellent scoring form in the league…
Oh yeah. Deadman’s law. My form player always gets injured – and always at just the wrong time.
Barry was badly missed when we resumed our league campaign against our old foes Debrecen. I’m sure he would have buried this golden chance we had in the 5th minute…
Firstly, how did János Géringer miss that? Secondly… why is Cyril Nebo‘s first thought after getting to the rebound, “Hmm… instead of going for goal, maybe I should punt this all the way back to our right-back?”
That would be a costly miss. Six minutes later, Rocha conceded a penalty, which was scored by ex-Arsenal midfielder Mohamed Elneny (yes, seriously). Debrecen added a second goal on 68 minutes, and though loanee winger Mario Bratu later pulled one goal back, we slumped to our third home defeat of the season.
Géringer did score in a 3-1 Magyar Kupa win over lower-league minnows Tiszakécske. We made heavier work of that game than we should’ve, though. It wasn’t until the 85th minute that loanee midfielder Marcelo Kanté‘s first Győr goal finally saw us into Round 4, where we would face Honvéd over two legs.
We also struggled a little at home to bottom side Haladás, who dominated the first 30 minutes. After some tactical tweaks, we gradually came out of our shell, and Bratu broke the deadlock for us just before half-time. Nebo then came off the bench to wrap up a 3-0 victory, firstly scoring from a tight angle before setting up a debut goal for Toman.
FEBRUARY 2028
Just like in October, we kicked off February with a couple of hard-fought draws against the top two. We shut out 2nd-placed Újpest at their place, with a fantastic performance from Patrik Demjén showing exactly why he was still our number 1 goalkeeper. George Kovács was getting very impatient on the bench, but hey – I’m not taking Demjén out of the team while he’s still playing so well!
And then we hosted the mighty Ferencváros. This match maked Barry’s return to action, but he picked up a knock before half-time and was replaced by vice-captain Norbert Kundrák, who had also recently recovered from an injury. I also gave a first league start to 16-year-old winger Csaba Katona, but to be honest, he looked a little overawed and didn’t last the full 90 minutes.
As a team, though, we were certainly not overawed – not even after ‘Fradi’ broke the deadlock in the 19th minute. We refused to let the champs increase their lead further, and then – with three minutes to go – Kundrák set up this counter-punch for Bratu, who’d replaced Katona for the closing stages.
That’s three goals in four league games for Super Mario… which means it’s only a matter of time before the Romanian wideman breaks his leg or something!
Another winger took the plaudits in the home leg of our Magyar Kupa Round 4 tie with Honvéd. Nemanja Jović scored his second Győr goal after 14 minutes, only for it to be cancelled out early in the second half. A 1-1 draw was perhaps a fair result after a hard-fought encounter, but Honvéd’s away goal meant the pressure would be on us to win the return leg.
Before that, though, was a hard-fought 2-1 win at lowly Mezőkövesd. The first half could not have gone much worse, as a dominant Kövesd won a penalty (which Demjén saved) before eventually breaking the deadlock close to half-time. After I gave my players some stern words at the break, they managed to turn things around, as substitute Jović’s low cross was converted by Toman before Barry’s late penalty made it 2-1.
Barry took his confidence into the second leg against Honvéd, where we needed at least one away goal to stay in the Kupa. The Englishman delivered midway through the first half, heading in a Bratu cross to give us a precious lead…
…a precious but fragile lead. Honvéd put us under constant pressure after falling behind, and when our reserve left-back Áron Domonyi conceded a penalty in the 60th minute, they had a golden chance to level. However, the penalty was pushed away by backup goalkeeper Kovács – one of EIGHT saves the young Romanian made in a stunning ‘man of the match’ display!
Three minutes after almost losing our lead, we were in control. Kanté’s cross was squared by teenager Dániel Juhász to Barry, whose tap-in made it 3-1 on aggregate. Because of the away goals rule, Honvéd needed THREE goals in the final half-hour, but Kovács shut them out and saw us through to the Quarter Finals!
I was so impressed with Kovács that I kept him in goal for our next league game – a solid 2-0 home win over Diósgyőr. Our opener was a Romanian special, as right-back Răzvan Onea‘s free-kick was flicked on by centre-half Eduard Ciubotaru, and the in-form Bratu headed home the first of his two goals.
We then battled bravely to hold mid-table Fehérvár to a 0-0 draw, especially after Rocha was sent off for a reckless challenge early in the second half. We stayed cool and calm without our Portuguese left-back, and Bratu even found the net again, though he was sadly flagged offside.
Despite a spate of draws in February, our unbeaten run kept us well clear of danger – the gap to the bottom two was now 17 points, with just 10 games remaining! In terms of our battle for Europe, we were just behind 4th-placed Debrecen on ‘games won’.
No, Cardiff! Bugger off! I don’t want to go back to Wales right now!
MARCH 2028
The Magyar Kupa Quarter Finals took centre-stage in March, and we had been given probably the easiest draw of the lot. All we had to do was win a two-legged tie against NB III side Vác – the last surviving team from outside the top flight – and Győr would be in the last four. Could we do it?
Never any doubt! Well… okay, there were a few doubts when we only won 2-0 in the home leg. It could have been much more comfortable, but Nebo missed a penalty after scoring the opener. Thankfully, defensive midfielder Gábor Tamás did eventually double our lead before helping us keep an important clean sheet.
Our performance in the return match was much more convincing. We romped to a 4-0 away win (6-0 on aggregate), with two of our most exciting teenagers – midfielder Roland Boros and winger Csaba Katona – scoring their first competitive goals.
In between those cup ties, we produced a clinical league performance at home to Kisvárda. Jović and Bratu scored the goals late in either half, converting our only two shots on target to help us leapfrog our opponents into 4th place!
And that won’t be the last time we face Kisvárda this season, because they will be our opponents in the Magyar Kupa Semi Finals! If we can survive a couple more games against them in April, we will be through to our first cup Final since 2013!
In the meantime, we could now set our sights on getting those last two victories we needed to guarantee our NB I survival. The first of them came in Budapest, as although MTK finally blemished Kovács’ record after six consecutive clean sheets, Bratu put them to the sword with another outstanding display. The first of his two goals was truly breathtaking.
After that, we went to Puskás Akadémia, who kept us goalless in the first half before we overwhelmed them 3-0 in the second. Barry set the ball rolling with a penalty, before Boros’ first league goal and Nebo’s header completed a hat-trick of wins against the relegation battlers.
And all that means, with seven games still to go, Győr have survived!
Now we can fully focus on turning a good season into a fantastic one. Can we qualify for the Europa Conference League, either by finishing in the top four… or by winning the Magyar Kupa?
We’ll find out the answer in the next chapter… but just before I go, let’s have a quick look at our youth intake. Those star ratings don’t look promising, though there are a couple of lads I still think are worth keeping tabs on.
Zoltán Hegedüs is a very brave central defender, and I love his spirited personality, though he is very slow and will have to improve on his heading. Róbert Lengyel looks like a more exciting prospect in attacking midfield, already having high scores in Dribbling, First Touch and Technique. Lengyel’s one real downside is his low Ambition, which could really stall his development.
With Győr now safe from relegation, can they now secure a place in European competition next season… and maybe even add some silverware to the trophy cabinet?
Please don’t miss the next chapter, because it’s sure to be a cracker!
Thanks for reading!
Fuller FM 
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