Yesterday was a huge day for Vasas. Nine points off the promotion places but with the top two to play this month, it was vital that they kept up their glorious 4-game winning streak to keep pace with the leaders. First and second placed MTK and Budafoki both had tricky away games, while Vasas faced an eminently beatable Nyíregyháza. And what a day it proved.

As we get the the Rudolf Illovszky Stadium, we hear the first good news of the day: MTK have shat the bed against Kazincbarcikai, losing 3-1. Buoyed by this, we settle into our seats to do a little research on today’s opponents, the quite ridiculously named Nyíregyháza Sparticus. Wikipedia‘s key data about the place reads thusly:

“Its zoo, exhibiting more than 500 species, including rarities, is recognized throughout Europe.”

We’ll see about that…

I’m not big on zoos so Spartacus are already the villains of the piece in my mind. A little googling brings up the reviews of said attraction, and they aren’t pretty…

“Sad lonely mindsick animals.” Bela T.

“I’m sorry my little boy had to see this.” Brigitta J.

“Nyíregyháza is a disgraceful place where animal torture is taking place every day.” Era M.

I think we’ve heard enough. Let’s send these cruel, animal-hating bastards back to the Great Hungarian Plain with the defeat they clearly deserve.

Happily, it doesn’t take long for Vasas to put Spartacus back in their cage. Adam Balajti hates scoring boring goals. However, he loves making people fall over. So when Szatmari finds him in space at the edge of the box, Bala, rather than just stroking the ball past the keeper, just has to cut inside a few times and make the defender look like one of the “sad icy bears” in Google user Era M’s 1 star review of Nyíregyháza Zoo. Defender safely dispatched on his arse, Bala has the simplest of jobs to make it 1-0 after 19 minutes.

And a few minutes later it’s 2-0. Róbert Feczesin has been a revelation in attack since arriving from Ujpest, and if Vasas do go up it’ll be largely due to the boost he’s brought to the sqaud. Balajti is the star of this goal though. Drawing two defenders to him, he dinks the ball beautifully over to Feczesin, who muscles past the defender like a thoroughbred (one you certainly wouldn’t find in a certain zoo) before sliding it home.

And the Feczesin fun doesn’t stop there. On 33 minutes he receives a short pass from the much-improved Lakatos, shifts it from under his feet, then fires into the net from 8 yards (perhaps spurred on by his hatred of animal cruelty). He’s already scored 6 for Vasas in the same number of games. Add to that the 8 he scored for Ujpest in the top tier and Mr. Feczesin is having a very fine season indeed. 3-0 Vasas.

A clear penalty from a misjudged Terbe lunge makes it 3-1 at the break, but more importantly the news filters through that 2nd placed Budafoki are losing away to Ajka and one of those pivotal days seems to be in the offing.

The second half can’t live up to the first; it doesn’t need to. Balajti provides the only high spot with a well-taken finish from a Terbe pass to make it 4-1 in injury time. Spartacus are “broken and dirty”, as noted in Zoltan B’s review of their horrendous zoo. Significantly, Budafoki lose 2-0 in the end at Ajka, and the promotion race is palpably back on.

Vasas travel to MTK next week – I have my ticket pinned on my notice board and I could not be more excited for another Budapest derby. If the Iron Workers can come out with at least 4 points from the upcoming games against MTK and Budafoki, this could – remarkably – be a promotion winning year, something which seemed utterly impossible a few months back. All credit to Ferenc Bene and his team for turning things around.

Nyíregyháza Spartacus however, could be forgiven for dwelling on Laszlo K’s Google review of their city’s main attraction, “It is not worth the 300km to arrive. It was disappointing to me”. Safe journey back Spartans…

Vasas 4-1 Nyíregyháza Spartacus (Balajti 2, Feczesin 2)

Here are the highlights if you fancy a watch, I recommend checking out the first two goals to get an insight into the wonderful cocky bastard that is Adam Balajti.