VanBudapest Editorial Desk · Published 18 September 2026 · Last updated 18 September 2026
Live trackerUEFA Europa League · League phase 2026/27Updated after matchday 1 · 18 September 2026
Last result · MD1Full time
Celtic1–3Ferencváros
WWin · +3 points
Next · MD2H
Ferencváros v Viktoria Plzeň
00Days00Hours00Min00Sec
League phase position
6thof 36
3 pts · GD +2
1–8 last 169–24 play-offs25–36 out
Ferencváros are back in the main draw of a European competition, and this time the route there was anything but routine.
The Hungarian champions of the past seven seasons are no longer champions. Győri ETO took the 2025/26 title by a single point, and Fradi went into the summer holding one qualification ticket: the Hungarian Cup, won in extra time at the Puskás Aréna. Eight qualifying matches later — unbeaten, through Serbia, the Netherlands, Poland and Turkey — they arrived in the 36-team Europa League league phase.
On 17 September they won 3–1 at Celtic Park with 39 per cent of the ball.
Four of their eight league phase matches are played in Budapest, at the Groupama Aréna: Viktoria Plzeň on 15 October, Torreense on 22 October, Celje on 26 November, and Juventus on 21 January 2027.
This guide covers all of it.
Key facts
| Competition | UEFA Europa League 2026/27, league phase |
| Matches | 8 — four at home in Budapest, four away |
| Home venue | Groupama Aréna, Budapest (listed by UEFA as Ferencváros Stadion) |
| Qualified via | 2025/26 Hungarian Cup — the club’s 25th |
| Qualifying record | 8 matches, 6 wins, 2 draws, unbeaten, 16–5 |
| Head coach | Borbély Balázs, appointed 1 June 2026 |
| Biggest home match | Ferencváros v Juventus, 21 January 2027, 18:45 |
| Final | 26 May 2027, Stadion Frankfurt |
How Ferencváros got here
The title that got away
For seven seasons the answer to “how did Ferencváros qualify for Europe?” was simple: they won the Hungarian league. In 2025/26 that stopped.
Győri ETO finished on 69 points. Ferencváros finished on 68. What makes the margin unusual is that Fradi were the better team by most of the measures people normally reach for: they won more matches than the champions, 21 to 20, and they had the better goal difference, +36 to +35. What they did not have was Győr’s consistency. Fradi lost seven league matches; ETO lost four. Nine draws for the champions turned into more points than Fradi’s five.
A seven-year run ended on the last weekend of the season, by a point.
The cup that did not
Two weeks before the league finished, Ferencváros had already secured the only European ticket they would end up needing.
The Hungarian Cup final was played on 9 May 2026 at the Puskás Aréna in front of 49,858 spectators. Zalaegerszeg held them for 90 minutes and then for most of extra time. In the 111th minute, Raemaekers scored the only goal of the night. It was Ferencváros’s 25th Hungarian Cup, and it sent them into the first qualifying round of the Europa League.
That detail matters for understanding the season that followed. Fradi did not enter European competition at a comfortable stage as champions. They entered at the very bottom of the Europa League ladder, in early July, with four rounds to survive before the league phase.
Eight matches, none lost
They survived all four.
| Round | Opponent | First leg | Second leg | Aggregate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st qualifying | FK Vojvodina (Serbia) | Vojvodina 1–2 Ferencváros | Ferencváros 3–0 Vojvodina | 5–1 |
| 2nd qualifying | FC Twente (Netherlands) | Twente 1–2 Ferencváros | Ferencváros 2–2 Twente | 4–3 |
| 3rd qualifying | Górnik Zabrze (Poland) | Ferencváros 1–0 Górnik | Górnik 1–1 Ferencváros | 2–1 |
| Play-off | Trabzonspor (Turkey) | Trabzonspor 0–1 Ferencváros | Ferencváros 4–0 Trabzonspor | 5–0 |
Eight matches. Six wins, two draws, no defeats, 16 goals scored and five conceded.
Two of those ties were harder than the aggregate scores suggest. Against Twente, Ferencváros played most of the home leg with ten men, led 2–0, and then watched the Dutch side score twice in the last eight minutes to cut the aggregate to 4–3. They held on. Against Górnik Zabrze, the tie was decided by a single goal across 180 minutes.
And then came Trabzonspor. A 1–0 win in Turkey, followed by a 4–0 at home that settled the play-off before the hour mark. It was the win that took Fradi into the league phase — and, according to the Hungarian press, the first time in the club’s history that a Hungarian head coach had taken Ferencváros into a Europa League main draw.
The coach who did it
Borbély Balázs took the job on 1 June 2026, replacing Robbie Keane. He arrived from Győri ETO — the club that had just taken the title off Ferencváros by a point.
His Ferencváros are not a possession side. That is not a criticism; it is the plan. In the away leg at Twente, Fradi had 31 per cent of the ball, defended in a compact block, and won 2–1. At Celtic Park in September they had 39 per cent and won 3–1. The pattern is deliberate: concede territory, stay organised, and convert the transitions.
It is also the single most useful thing to know before reading the rest of this guide, because six of the eight league phase opponents are sides that want the ball.
Matchday one: Celtic 1–3 Ferencváros
17 September 2026 · Celtic Park, Glasgow · 48,223
Celtic had 61 per cent of the ball. They took 16 shots to Ferencváros’s 12. They won the corner count 11–3 and completed 90 per cent of their passes to Fradi’s 81.
They lost 3–1.
Ferencváros had five shots on target and scored three of them. The first was an own goal from Scales on 20 minutes. Baur made it 2–0 on 44. Zachariassen, wearing the captain’s armband, scored in first-half stoppage time. Arzani added the fourth goal of the night two minutes after the restart.
It was not a smash-and-grab in the sense of a team surviving on luck. It was the Borbély method working exactly as designed against a side that insisted on playing into it.
For context on how that result reads in the wider competition: in the five-year UEFA club coefficient, Ferencváros sit 37th in Europe and Celtic 53rd. The 3–1 was not an upset by the numbers. It was the ranking being honoured.
Where Fradi stand
After matchday 1, Ferencváros are 6th in the 36-team table on 3 points with a goal difference of +2 — inside the top eight, which qualifies directly for the round of 16.
Round of 16Knockout play-offsEliminated
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
| Pos | Move | Club | P | W | D | L | Goals | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | – | Sparta Praha CZE | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4–1 | +3 | 3 |
| 4 | – | Beşiktaş TUR | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4–1 | +3 | 3 |
| 5 | – | Union SG BEL | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3–0 | +3 | 3 |
| 6 | – | Ferencváros HUN | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3–1 | +2 | 3 |
| 7 | – | Benfica POR | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2–0 | +2 | 3 |
| 8= | – | Leverkusen GER | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2–0 | +2 | 3 |
| 8= | – | OFI Crete GRE | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2–0 | +2 | 3 |
Arrows compare with the previous matchday. Level teams share a position.
Form · league phase
- WCELA · 3–1
- PLZH · 15 Oct
- TORH · 22 Oct
- MILA · 5 Nov
- CLJH · 26 Nov
- LPOA · 10 Dec
- JUVH · 21 Jan
- HOFA · 28 Jan
1 won0 drawn0 lost3–1 goals
The road through the table
- 6MD1at Celtic
- MD2Viktoria Plzeň
- MD3Torreense
- MD4at Milan
- MD5Celje
- MD6at Lech Poznań
- MD7Juventus
- MD8at Hoffenheim
Position after each matchday. Future matchdays stay empty: no projections.
What it takes
3 points banked. 21 still to play for.
024 pts max
In 2024/25, the first season of this format, 15 points took teams straight into the last 16. One side got there on 14. On 10 points, two of the five teams went out.
Benchmarks: “Predicting Qualification Thresholds in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League under the New League Phase Format”, arXiv 2508.20075.
Table and results: UEFA official data, updated after every matchday.
The 2026/27 Ferencváros: method, squad and the summer
The method
Borbély Balázs’s Ferencváros do not try to control matches. They try to decide them.
The numbers make the point better than any description. At Twente, in the second qualifying round, Ferencváros had 31 per cent of the ball and won. At Celtic Park, on matchday one of the league phase, they had 39 per cent and won 3–1. In neither match were they camped in their own half by accident.
The shape is a compact block that concedes territory, holds its structure without the ball, and attacks the moment possession turns over. Against Twente they played most of the home leg a man down, led 2–0, and still came within two late goals of losing the tie — and held on. Against Celtic they had five shots on target and scored three.
There is a second weapon that is easy to miss in the highlights: set pieces. Across the qualifying campaign they were a consistent source of goals rather than an occasional one.
The vulnerability is the mirror image of the strength. A team built to punish opponents who commit forward has to find a different answer against opponents who do not. That question arrives on 22 October, when Torreense come to Budapest and sit deep.
Who actually plays
Six players have started essentially every match that mattered, in qualifying and in the league phase: Gómez, Raemaekers, Cadu, Corbu, Zachariassen and Yusuf. That is the spine.
Around them, the rotation runs through Osváth, Nagy Olivér, Botka, Zohoré, Rommens, Keïta, Levi, O’Dowda, Kovačević, Lisztes, Birmančević and Bero.
The goalkeeping situation is genuinely open. Dibusz Dénes started all eight qualifying matches. At Celtic Park, Varga Ádám played and Dibusz sat on the bench. Ferencváros won 3–1. What that means for the rest of the season has not been stated publicly by the club.
Four names to watch
Bamidele Yusuf — the form player of the season. He scored against Vojvodina, his former club, in the first qualifying round; he scored from the spot against Trabzonspor; and at Celtic Park the Hungarian press credited him with three assists. (UEFA does not publish assist data for this match, so that figure comes from press reporting rather than the official record.)
Kristoffer Zachariassen — the captain, and the tactical spine of the side. He scored twice against Vojvodina, again against Trabzonspor, and in first-half stoppage time in Glasgow.
Bagi Ádám — the most interesting name at the club. A B-list academy player who started at Celtic Park, and who had already scored in a 3–0 win over the reigning champions Győri ETO.
Daniel Arzani — back from a loan spell, and straight into the scoresheet with one of the better goals of the matchday in Glasgow.
The B-list is not decorative. Alongside Bagi, Lakatos Csongor, Madarász Ádám, Radnóti Dániel, Varga Zétény and Szabó Szilárd are all in and around the squad, and the sporting director has said publicly that younger players are getting minutes alongside the new signings.
The summer: fifteen out, four in
This was one of the largest squad turnovers in the club’s recent history, and it went in one direction.
Fifteen players left — thirteen permanent departures and five loans, by the Hungarian press’s count. The two most significant sales, Gruber Zsombor and Gavriel Kanikovszki, both went through in the last fortnight of the window, after European qualification was already secured.
Four players arrived permanently, plus one loan extension:
| Player | Position | From | Announced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nathan Zohoré | Centre-back | US Boulogne | 20 June 2026 |
| Nagy Ádám | Midfielder, 88 Hungary caps | Spezia | 31 July 2026 |
| Veljko Birmančević | Winger, 17 Serbia caps | Sparta Praha | 28 August 2026 |
| Matúš Bero | Midfielder, 50 Slovakia caps | VfL Bochum, free transfer | 1 September 2026 |
| Lisztes Krisztián | Forward | Eintracht Frankfurt, loan extended to June 2027 | 29 June 2026 |
Ferencváros did not disclose fees for any of the four permanent signings. Figures circulating in the press are reported estimates, not club statements, and are treated as such here.
What is notable is how quickly the new arrivals were integrated. By the Celtic match, Nagy Ádám was starting in midfield and Arzani was starting and scoring. Bero had marked his debut with a hat-trick in the Hungarian Cup. Birmančević and Zohoré were on the bench, and Zohoré came on late.
Form, and a contradiction
Ferencváros are in the middle of a genuinely strange season, and the two halves of it do not match.
In Europe: unbeaten in nine matches — eight qualifiers and a win at Celtic Park.
At home in the league: fifth, eleven points from six matches, with a game in hand.
And a detail that will either become a footnote or a theme: Ferencváros have not yet won a domestic league match at the Groupama Aréna this season. Two home games, two draws.
A team that wins in Glasgow but draws at home in Budapest is not a team with a settled identity at its own ground. Four European nights at the Groupama Aréna between October and January are, among other things, a chance to fix that.
Seven years in Europe: how Ferencváros got good at this
Ferencváros winning 3–1 at Celtic Park is easier to understand with the previous seven seasons in front of you. This is the eighth consecutive year the club has reached the main draw of a European competition, and the campaigns behind it describe a steady climb rather than a sudden leap.
The record
| Season | Competition | How far |
|---|---|---|
| 2019/20 | Europa League | Group stage, 7 points, third |
| 2020/21 | Champions League | Group stage, 1 point, fourth — a first Champions League group in 25 years |
| 2021/22 | Europa League | Group stage, 3 points, fourth |
| 2022/23 | Europa League | Won the group with 10 points, ahead of Monaco, Trabzonspor and Crvena zvezda → round of 16, out to Bayer Leverkusen |
| 2023/24 | Conference League | Second in the group, unbeaten, 10 points, behind eventual finalists Fiorentina → out to eventual winners Olympiacos |
| 2024/25 | Champions League qualifying → Europa League | Out in the third qualifying round, into the Europa League, eliminated in the knockout play-off |
| 2025/26 | Europa League | Round of 16, out to Braga, 4–2 on aggregate |
Read down that column and a pattern appears. Three seasons of arriving and being outclassed. Then, from 2022/23, three seasons of winning groups, going unbeaten in them, and reaching knockout football.
The season that changed the baseline
2025/26 is the one worth dwelling on, because it reset what this club considers normal.
Counting qualifying, Ferencváros played eighteen European matches in a single season — an outright Hungarian record. They won ten, drew four and lost four, averaging 1.75 points per match. It earned 17.25 coefficient points, which is the engine behind the ranking they carry into this season.
It also produced something the club had been waiting half a century for. Beating Ludogorets in the spring was Ferencváros’s first victory in a European knockout tie in 51 years.
They went out in the round of 16, beaten 4–2 on aggregate by Braga after losing the away leg 4–0. By the assessment of the Hungarian sports press, it was still the best European campaign by a Hungarian club since group stages were introduced.
Where that leaves 2026/27
Three numbers carry the story into this season.
Nine matches unbeaten in Europe — eight qualifiers and the win in Glasgow. According to the club, no other side in this season’s competition has matched that run.
An eighth consecutive main-draw campaign. Whatever else is true about Hungarian football, Ferencváros in Europe is no longer an event. It is a fixture.
A first. This is the first time the club has reached a Europa League main draw with a Hungarian head coach.
And the context that matters most for what follows: Ferencváros reached the round of 16 last season and start this one ranked 37th in Europe, above five of their eight opponents. The four European nights coming to Budapest between October and January are not a club punching above its weight. They are a club arriving where it has spent seven years getting to.
The full eight-match schedule
All times are Europe/Budapest. Home matches are played at the Groupama Aréna.
- Matchday 1, Thu 17 Sep 2026: Celtic 1, Ferencváros 3, in Glasgow.
- Matchday 2, Thu 15 Oct 2026: Ferencváros against Viktoria Plzeň, in Budapest, kick-off 21:00 Budapest time.
- Matchday 3, Thu 22 Oct 2026: Ferencváros against Torreense, in Budapest, kick-off 18:45 Budapest time.
- Matchday 4, Thu 5 Nov 2026: Milan against Ferencváros, in Milan, kick-off 18:45 Budapest time.
- Matchday 5, Thu 26 Nov 2026: Ferencváros against Celje, in Budapest, kick-off 21:00 Budapest time.
- Matchday 6, Thu 10 Dec 2026: Lech Poznań against Ferencváros, in Poznań, kick-off 21:00 Budapest time.
- Matchday 7, Thu 21 Jan 2027: Ferencváros against Juventus, in Budapest, kick-off 18:45 Budapest time.
- Matchday 8, Thu 28 Jan 2027: Hoffenheim against Ferencváros, in Sinsheim, kick-off 21:00 Budapest time.
H Budapest, Groupama Aréna · All kick-offs are Budapest time, with UK time alongside. Fixtures and times are subject to change.
A note on the venue name. All four Budapest matches were checked individually against UEFA’s own match pages, rather than assumed. They are all at the Groupama Aréna. If you look the fixtures up on UEFA’s site and cannot find that name, this is why: under UEFA’s clean-stadium rules, sponsor names are not used, and the ground is listed as Ferencváros Stadion. Same building, different label.
A note on the clock. UEFA publishes these fixtures as CET. Two of them — 15 and 22 October — fall while Hungary is still on summer time. The Budapest kick-off times above are correct as local times either way; the discrepancy only appears if you convert through UTC yourself.
How the new Europa League actually works
If your last clear memory of this competition involves groups of four, that format is gone. Here is what replaced it.
The league phase in one picture
- 36clubs in one table. No groups.
- 8matches each: four at home, four away, eight different opponents.
- 4×9four pots of nine, seeded by coefficient; two opponents drawn from each pot.
- 3 ptsfor a win, 1 point for a draw.
- 1st–8thStraight into the round of 16
- 9th–24thKnockout phase play-off round, two legs, February 2027
- 25th–36thEliminated from European competition
- Sep–JanLeague phase
- Feb 2027Knockout play-off
- Mar 2027Round of 16
- Apr–MayQuarter-finals and semi-finals
- 26 May 2027Final, Stadion Frankfurt
One table, 36 clubs
There are no groups. All 36 clubs sit in a single league table. Each club plays eight matches against eight different opponents — four at home, four away — and never plays the same club twice.
The pairings are not random in the loose sense. Clubs were seeded into four pots of nine by coefficient, and each club drew two opponents from each pot, one to play at home and one away. That is why Ferencváros’s eight opponents range from Juventus and Milan at one end to Torreense at the other: the draw is designed to produce exactly that spread.
Points and the table
Three points for a win, one for a draw. The 36 clubs are ranked in one standing.
The tie-break rule almost everyone gets wrong
This is worth getting right, because the table will be crowded with ties for most of the autumn.
The competition regulations set out a long list of tie-break criteria — goal difference, goals scored, away goals scored, wins, away wins, disciplinary points, and so on, running from (a) through (j).
But those criteria do not all apply yet. Through matchdays one to seven, only the first five are used. If two clubs are still level after those, they share the same position, and any list that has to put one above the other does so alphabetically. The full sequence only comes into force after matchday eight, when the final table is settled.
In practice this means that mid-season league phase tables contain far more genuine ties than a conventional league table would, and that a club’s listed position in November is a softer number than it looks.
What the final table decides
| Final position | Outcome |
|---|---|
| 1st – 8th | Straight into the round of 16 |
| 9th – 24th | Knockout phase play-off round, two legs; the higher-ranked clubs are seeded |
| 25th – 36th | Eliminated from European competition |
There is no parachute into a lesser competition. Finishing 25th or below ends the season in Europe.
The rest of the season
The knockout play-off round is played in February 2027, the round of 16 in March, and the quarter-finals and semi-finals in April and May. The final is on 26 May 2027 at Stadion Frankfurt.
The winner enters the league phase of the 2027/28 Champions League and plays in the UEFA Super Cup.
The eight opponents, ranked
Before the individual chapters, it is worth seeing the eight opponents side by side, because the spread is wider than the names suggest.
The figures below are the five-year UEFA club coefficient — the ranking that also determined the seeding pots.
| Club | Country | European rank | Where Fradi play them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milan | Italy | 25th | Away, 5 Nov |
| Juventus | Italy | 32nd | Home, 21 Jan |
| Ferencváros | Hungary | 37th | — |
| Viktoria Plzeň | Czechia | 38th | Home, 15 Oct |
| Celtic | Scotland | 53rd | Away, played |
| Lech Poznań | Poland | 71st | Away, 10 Dec |
| Celje | Slovenia | 79th | Home, 26 Nov |
| Hoffenheim | Germany | 116th | Away, 28 Jan |
| Torreense | Portugal | 135th | Home, 22 Oct |
Five-year UEFA club coefficient as computed by kassiesa.net, accessed 18 September 2026.
Three things stand out.
Ferencváros are not the small club in this group. They rank above five of their eight opponents, including Celtic, and sit within a point and a half of Viktoria Plzeň. The genuine step up is limited to the two Italian clubs.
Hoffenheim are 116th. A Bundesliga side, and one of the lowest-ranked opponents Fradi will face. Coefficient measures European results over five years, and Hoffenheim have not had many.
Torreense are 135th because until this season they had no European results at all. More on that later — it is the best story in the competition.
A competition in flux
One more piece of context before the individual chapters, and it applies to the whole field rather than just to Fradi.
At least 19 of the 36 clubs in this season’s Europa League changed head coach during 2026. Among Ferencváros’s own opponents, the churn is sharper still: Celtic are on their fourth manager in twelve months, Viktoria Plzeň on their fourth in a year and appointed theirs in late August, and Celje sacked their coach on 15 September — two days before the competition began.
Ferencváros changed coach too, on 1 June. The difference is that theirs has had a full summer and eight European matches to install an idea, and it is working.
The four European nights in Budapest
Photo: Michał Bulsa / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0MD7The big one
Ferencváros v Juventus
Thursday 21 January 2027 · 18:45 Budapest · 17:45 UK · Groupama Aréna
On 23 June 1965 in Turin, Ferencváros beat Juventus 1–0 in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final, still the greatest night in the club’s history. Sixty-two years later, Juventus come to Budapest.
MD2Thu 15 Oct 2026 · 21:00
Ferencváros v Viktoria Plzeň
Unfinished business: Plzeň knocked Fradi out 3–1 on aggregate in February 2025.
MD3Thu 22 Oct 2026 · 18:45
Ferencváros v Torreense
Second-division cup winners: Torreense beat Sporting CP in the 2026 Taça de Portugal final, the first trophy in their history.
MD5Thu 26 Nov 2026 · 21:00
Ferencváros v Celje
Slovenian champions, 79th in Europe, and in 2025 the first Slovenian club to reach a major UEFA quarter-final.
All four at the Groupama Aréna, Budapest. Kick-off times are Budapest time.
Ferencváros v Viktoria Plzeň
Matchday 2 · Thursday 15 October 2026 · 21:00 · Groupama Aréna, Budapest
The one they owe
Of the four teams coming to Budapest this season, Viktoria Plzeň are the only one Ferencváros have unfinished business with — and the business is recent.
In February 2025, the two clubs met in the Europa League knockout phase. Fradi won the first leg at home 1–0, Abu Fani scoring on 23 minutes. In the Czech Republic a week later, Plzeň won 3–0. Ferencváros went out 3–1 on aggregate. It remains the sharpest European disappointment of the club’s recent run.
Across three competitive meetings the record is one win each and a draw, with Plzeň ahead 4–2 on goals.
But this is not that Plzeň
The side that knocked Ferencváros out has largely dispersed. Pavel Šulc, who scored in the second leg, is at Lyon. Rafiu Durosinmi, who also scored, is at Pisa. Václav Jemelka, the third scorer that night, is injured.
The 2026/27 version is in trouble. Plzeň sit tenth in the Czech league with two wins from eight matches and only one of those at home. Their captain, Matěj Vydra, is injured. Radoslav Kováč took over as head coach in late August — the club’s fourth in a year — and had barely three weeks in the job before the competition started.
Their Europa League opener was worse than the league form suggested. They lost 3–0 at home to Union Saint-Gilloise in front of 8,211 people, and the away supporters spent the closing stages celebrating with the kind of irony that tells you everything about the mood in the stadium.
The case for caution
And yet. In the qualifying play-off, Plzeň went 3–0 down on aggregate to Crvena zvezda and won the tie 5–1 from there. Whatever is wrong with this team, it is not a lack of nerve.
They also sit 38th in the five-year European coefficient — a point and a half behind Ferencváros, and above every other club Fradi face this season except the two Italians. On paper this is the closest match of the four in Budapest.
What to watch
Ferencváros have built their European season on giving the ball away deliberately and punishing the team that takes it. Plzeň under Kováč are still working out what they want to be. A side with an unsettled identity against a side with a very settled one is the story of this match.
Worth watching too: Fradi have not yet won a domestic league match at the Groupama Aréna this season. Two home games, two draws. Their European form at home and their league form at home are currently telling different stories.
Getting there
This is a Thursday night kick-off at 21:00, which means a stadium emptying close to 23:00 into a city that is still on summer time and still busy. Plzeň is around six to seven hours from Budapest by road, so most travelling supporters will arrive by coach rather than through the airport.
For visitors flying in, the practical point is the return leg rather than the arrival: late kick-offs and early-morning departures do not combine well, and the transfer that matters is the one after the final whistle.
Ferencváros v Torreense
Matchday 3 · Thursday 22 October 2026 · 18:45 · Groupama Aréna, Budapest
The best story in the competition
On 24 May 2026, União de Torres Vedras — Torreense — beat Sporting CP 2–1 in the final of the Taça de Portugal.
They were, and still are, a second-division club. Zohi scored after four minutes. Stopira settled it from the penalty spot in extra time. It was the first trophy in the club’s history, and the first time in the history of Portuguese football that the national cup had been won by a team outside the top flight.
This is their first European campaign. Ever.
A club that cannot host its own home matches
Torreense’s ground is the Estádio Manuel Marques in Torres Vedras, a town north of Lisbon. It holds 2,431 people. It does not meet UEFA’s requirements for this competition.
So their Europa League home matches are played in Leiria, at the Estádio Dr. Magalhães Pessoa, roughly 100 kilometres away. A club that has never played in Europe is playing its historic first home campaign in a borrowed stadium in another city.
There is a second wrinkle. Luís Tralhão is the head coach, but for UEFA matches the club is represented on the touchline by assistant Carlos Simões, for coaching-licence reasons.
The reality check
Romance and results are different things. Torreense are fourteenth in the Portuguese second tier with six points from six matches. Their Europa League debut ended in a 2–1 defeat at Lillestrøm.
In the five-year European coefficient they rank 135th — not because they have done badly in Europe, but because until this season they had never been there at all. They are the lowest-ranked club Ferencváros will face, by a distance.
What to watch
This is the match where Ferencváros are clearly expected to win, and expectation is a different opponent from the one they have handled so well. Fradi’s season has been built on being underestimated: 31 per cent of the ball at Twente, 39 per cent at Celtic Park. Against a side that will sit deep and defend, they have to solve the opposite problem.
Watch how Borbély’s team handles a low block. It is the question the rest of the campaign has not asked them yet.
Getting there
An earlier kick-off, at 18:45, which makes this the most straightforward of the four Budapest nights: the stadium empties before 21:00 and the evening is still usable.
Torreense are a small club with a small travelling support, and Portugal is a long way from Hungary. The crowd for this one will be overwhelmingly local — which, for a neutral visitor, makes it arguably the best of the four for actually experiencing a Ferencváros home atmosphere rather than a split stadium.
Ferencváros v Celje
Matchday 5 · Thursday 26 November 2026 · 21:00 · Groupama Aréna, Budapest
Slovenia’s best team, in chaos
NK Celje are the champions of Slovenia — their third title — and they are not a novelty act. They rank 79th in Europe, they are in their third consecutive main-draw season, and in 2025 they became the first Slovenian club ever to reach the quarter-finals of a major UEFA competition, where they went out to Fiorentina.
They reached this season’s Europa League the hard way, losing a Champions League play-off to Slovan Bratislava and dropping into the league phase.
And then, on 15 September 2026 — two days before the competition began — they sacked their head coach.
Vítor Campelos was dismissed and replaced by Zoran Zeljković, who arrived from Koper and had a single training session with the squad before they lost 2–0 to Bayer Leverkusen on matchday one. They currently sit seventh in the Slovenian league with eleven points from eight matches.
The November problem
This is the coldest and most awkward of the four Budapest matches, and not only because of the weather.
It is matchday five of eight. By late November the league table will have taken shape, the top-eight places that lead straight to the round of 16 will be in view, and Ferencváros will know exactly what this match is worth. A home game against the lowest-coefficient side left on their calendar, at the point in the season where the table starts to bite, is the definition of a match a good team is supposed to win.
What to watch
Zeljković will have had two months by then to impose something on this squad, which makes Celje a genuinely unpredictable opponent — not because they are strong, but because nobody, including them, yet knows what they will look like in late November.
Celje’s own history is worth keeping in mind before writing them off. A club from a town of 37,000 people reached a European quarter-final eighteen months ago.
Getting there
A 21:00 kick-off on the last Thursday of November. Budapest in late November is cold and dark by five in the afternoon, and the walk from public transport to the ground is not the experience it is in October.
Celje is around four and a half hours from Budapest by road, so their support will travel by coach. For anyone flying in, this is the match where pre-booked transport stops being a convenience and starts being the difference between a good night and a cold one.
Ferencváros v Juventus, 21 January 2027
Matchday 7 · Thursday 21 January 2027 · 18:45 · Groupama Aréna, Budapest
Sixty-two years later
On 23 June 1965, in Turin, Ferencváros beat Juventus 1–0 in the final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Fenyvesi Máté scored in the 74th minute in front of 40,000 people at the Stadio Comunale.
It remains the greatest night in the club’s history, and it came against the team that is now coming to Budapest.
One precision, because it is routinely got wrong: the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was not a UEFA competition. It was organised separately, and although it is the direct ancestor of the modern Europa League, it does not appear in UEFA’s own trophy records. Ferencváros’s 1965 triumph is real, historic, and frequently mislabelled.
The meetings since
The two clubs have met nine times in official competition. Ferencváros have won twice, drawn twice and lost five, with Juventus ahead 18–11 on goals.
Three of those meetings came in the Mitropa Cup, in 1932, 1938 and 1962. Then the 1965 final. Then a long silence, until the 2020/21 Champions League group stage, when Juventus won 4–1 in Budapest and 2–1 in Turin.
Two of the last three competitive meetings between these clubs have been played in Budapest. Ferencváros have not beaten Juventus since that night in Turin.
The 2026/27 Juventus
Luciano Spalletti’s side qualified directly from sixth place in Serie A. Their 2025/26 ended with a Coppa Italia quarter-final and a Champions League exit to Galatasaray, 7–5 on aggregate.
The summer was unusual. Juventus brought in nine players — including Kolo Muani for a reported €41.2 million and Alajbegović for a reported €32 million — and moved eleven out, but did not sell a single senior player permanently. Vlahović and Kostić both left on free transfers.
Their Europa League began with a 5–0 win over NEC. In Serie A they are eighth after four rounds.
What Ferencváros can work with
Two things, and both are on the record.
First, availability. Manuel Locatelli, the captain, has had meniscus surgery with a stated recovery of five to six months — which, counted from the announcement, puts January in serious doubt. Kenan Yıldız was out until November and registered on the B-list. Zhegrova, Thuram, Milik, Rugani and Ekhator were left out of the Europa League squad entirely.
Second, shape. Spalletti has himself acknowledged that his side has been defending with a line that sits too high.
A high line against a team whose entire European season has been built on giving away the ball and attacking the space behind is, at minimum, an interesting matchup. Ferencváros will not have more possession than Juventus in January. On the evidence of this campaign so far, they will not want it.
Why this is the night
Ferencváros rank 37th in Europe on the five-year coefficient. Juventus rank 32nd. That is five places — closer than any Budapest football supporter under the age of sixty has had reason to expect when Juventus are the visitors.
Add the date. A Thursday night in late January, floodlights on by five in the afternoon, a full Groupama Aréna, and an opponent whose name carries outside football entirely. This is the match of the Hungarian club season.
Getting there — and this part needs planning
Three practical realities, all of which apply more sharply to this match than the other three.
Away tickets are limited by regulation. Under the competition rules, the home club must make at least five per cent of the stadium’s UEFA capacity available to visiting supporters. At the Groupama Aréna, which holds somewhere between 21,689 and 22,122 for international matches depending on configuration, that works out at roughly 1,100 seats. That is a floor, not a ceiling — but it is a small number for a club of Juventus’s size.
A supporter card is required, and it cannot be obtained online. Ferencváros require a fan card for entry, and at the time of writing it can only be obtained in person in Budapest. For a visitor flying in from Italy, this is not an administrative footnote: it effectively requires arriving the day before the match. Check the official Ferencváros channels for the current position, because this is exactly the kind of rule that changes.
Same-day return from Turin does not work. An 18:45 kick-off means a final whistle around 20:35 and a stadium clear around 21:00. There is no realistic way to reach Budapest Airport and fly out the same evening. This is an overnight trip, and for most travelling groups a two-night one.
Which, in practical terms, means the transport that matters is not a single airport run. It is an arrival transfer, a stadium transfer, a post-match return at 21:00 alongside 20,000 other people leaving at the same moment, and a departure the following day.
A January night, a full stadium and 20,000 people leaving at once. Arrival transfers, matchday coordination and multi-day chauffeur service for groups.
BOOK NOWThe four away matches
Milan v Ferencváros
Matchday 4 · Thursday 5 November 2026 · 18:45 · Milan
The first time
Ferencváros and Milan — commonly AC Milan — have never played each other. Not in a European competition, not in the old continental cups, not in any recorded competitive fixture. In November, after more than a century of both clubs existing, they finally will.
It is also Milan’s own return. They did not play in Europe at all in 2025/26, having finished fifth in Serie A the season before. This is their first continental campaign in two years.
A club rebuilding in public
Rúben Amorim took over on 16 June 2026 on a three-year contract, bringing his 3-4-2-1. The squad was reshaped around him: Gonçalo Ramos arrived for a reported €74 million, Moreira for €45 million, Gila for €25 million, while Rafael Leão left for Galatasaray for a reported €38 million.
It has not settled. Milan are unbeaten in Serie A but sixth, and their Europa League began with a 0–2 home defeat to Benfica, after which the manager and the ownership held what was widely described as a crisis meeting. The line that followed — that the team is not organised — came from inside the club.
There is one statistic that captures it. At the time of writing, Milan have not scored a single first-half goal this season.
What to watch
Milan are the highest-ranked club in Ferencváros’s group of eight: 25th in Europe, twelve places above Fradi. On paper this is the hardest match of the eight.
But a possession side that is struggling for organisation and cannot score early is, in structural terms, precisely the opponent Ferencváros have spent this season beating. They will have far less of the ball at San Siro than they had at Celtic Park. On the evidence so far, that is not the problem it sounds like.
Lech Poznań v Ferencváros
Matchday 6 · Thursday 10 December 2026 · 21:00 · Poznań
Champions of Poland, twice over
Lech Poznań have won the last two Ekstraklasa titles, in 2025 and 2026, and added the 2026 Polish Super Cup. Niels Frederiksen is the head coach; Mikael Ishak is the captain. They play at the Stadion Poznań, comfortably the largest ground Ferencváros will visit this season. (Published capacity figures for it vary across sources, so we are not quoting one.)
This is another first meeting. The two clubs have no competitive history.
How they got here, and how it is going
Lech did not reach the Europa League directly. In the Champions League second qualifying round they led AGF 4–1 from the away leg, lost 4–1 at home after extra time to level the tie at 5–5, and went out on penalties. They then came through the Europa League path, beating KÍ 6–0 and Thun 9–2 on aggregate.
The autumn has been uneven. They are third in the Ekstraklasa with sixteen points from seven matches, but arrived at the league phase on the back of two consecutive defeats — and then lost 4–0 to Crystal Palace on matchday one.
What to watch
A December night in Poznań, in a big stadium, against a team that will want the ball and press high. Frederiksen’s Lech are proactive by design, which has been the profile of almost every side Ferencváros have beaten this season.
This is also the last match before the winter break, and the one that will largely determine what the Juventus fixture in January is actually worth.
Hoffenheim v Ferencváros
Matchday 8 · Thursday 28 January 2027 · 21:00 · Sinsheim
The last night
Ferencváros finish their league phase in Sinsheim, seven days after hosting Juventus.
TSG Hoffenheim qualified directly by finishing fifth in the Bundesliga with 61 points. It is a third first meeting: Ferencváros and Hoffenheim have no competitive history either.
A detail worth getting right: the stadium changed its name on 1 July 2026 and is now the SNP Arena. Anything published before that summer will call it the PreZero Arena. Its UEFA capacity is 25,641 — smaller than the venue’s reputation suggests, and not much larger than the Groupama Aréna.
A big-spending club having a bad autumn
Hoffenheim sold Bazoumana Touré for a reported €50 million and reinvested €66.2 million across fourteen arrivals. Attila Szalai left for Pogoń Szczecin. Christian Ilzer is the head coach, Oliver Baumann the captain.
None of it is working yet. They are thirteenth in the Bundesliga on three points, and their Europa League opened with a 0–2 defeat away to OFI Crete.
In the five-year European coefficient they rank 116th — seventy-nine places below Ferencváros. A Bundesliga club that has simply not been in Europe often enough to accumulate anything.
What is at stake
That depends entirely on the seven matches before it, and this guide will not pretend otherwise. There is no points total that guarantees a top-eight finish, and any figure you see quoted as one is someone’s estimate rather than a rule.
What can be said with certainty is structural: eighth place and ninth place are separated by an entire two-legged knockout round in February. Finishing 25th or lower ends the season. A final matchday away in Germany, a week after the biggest home match in years, is a demanding way to settle it.
Meet all 36 teams
Thirty-six clubs, one table, and a field with more genuine stories in it than any group stage produced. Here they are, arranged by the pots they were drawn from.
Ferencváros’s own eight opponents are marked ●.
Pot 1
Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) — The highest-ranked club in the competition by some distance, and here as a demotion rather than an achievement.
Benfica (Portugal) — Played six qualifying matches just to get in, going through St. Gallen, Hearts and AGF. They never played a Champions League qualifier at all; they entered here from third place in Portugal.
● Juventus (Italy) — 32nd in Europe on the five-year coefficient, and one end of the transfer web that ties this field together: Vlahović left them on a free and turned up at Beşiktaş.
● Milan (Italy) — The only club in the field to make a €74 million signing this summer, and they still lost 0–2 at home to Benfica on matchday one.
Lyon (France) — Fourteen months ago they were administratively relegated to Ligue 2 and close to collapse. They are now a pot-one Europa League club under Michele Kang, the first female owner of a French club.
AZ Alkmaar (Netherlands) — AZ and N.E.C. are the two sides of the same cup final: AZ won it 5–1 in the spring, which is how they got here.
Olympiacos (Greece) — Lost the title, lost a Champions League qualifier to N.E.C., and changed coach eight days before the competition started.
Real Sociedad (Spain) — The field’s neatest contradiction: they finished tenth in Spain and are in pot one, because the Copa del Rey brought them here while the coefficient was built in better years.
Marseille (France) — The only pot-one club to arrive without a single significant signing, after three major sales and a complete change of leadership.
Pot 2
● Ferencváros (Hungary) — The strongest team in pot two by coefficient, ranked above Salzburg, Celtic and Sparta Praha, and 3–1 winners at Celtic Park on the opening night.
● Viktoria Plzeň (Czechia) — Came from 3–0 down to beat Crvena zvezda 5–1 in extra time to get here, with two penalties and a 96th-minute goal. The most dramatic recovery of the whole qualifying campaign.
Union Saint-Gilloise (Belgium) — The field’s biggest venue anomaly. Ranked in pot two, but their 9,400-capacity ground is so far from UEFA standard that they play home matches in another city, in Leuven.
GNK Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia) — The only club in pot two to have won everything at home last season and to have actually lifted a European trophy: the 1967 Fairs Cup.
Salzburg (Austria) — The Austrian hegemon of the last decade arrives as a challenger rather than a champion, third at home behind LASK and having fought through qualifying.
● Celtic (Scotland) — The sharpest contrast in the competition: a flawless six-win start in Scotland, and alongside it a blown 3–0 aggregate lead against LASK and a 1–3 home defeat to Ferencváros.
Sparta Praha (Czechia) — A double life: pot two in Europe, eighth at home after eight rounds.
Rennes (France) — Sold the most expensive player of the summer in this field and got stronger, arriving unbeaten from third in Ligue 1.
Anderlecht (Belgium) — One of the most decorated trophy cabinets in European football — two Cup Winners’ Cups, a UEFA Cup, two Super Cups — and the lowest coefficient in pot two.
Pot 3
Sturm Graz (Austria) — Austrian champions in 2024 and 2025, dethroned within a year, and now here with a 34-year-old coach appointed in January.
● Lech Poznań (Poland) — Two-time reigning Polish champions, playing in one of the largest grounds in the competition, and strengthened by Luis Palma — signed from another club in this very field, Celtic.
Crystal Palace (England) — The only side arriving as a reigning UEFA trophy holder, having finished 15th domestically and then lost both the manager who won it and the captain before him.
Bournemouth (England) — A seaside club with a 12,357-capacity ground that reached European football for the first time in 127 years, and won 2–1 at Real Sociedad on matchday one.
Sunderland (England) — Promoted in 2025, finished seventh, and back in Europe after 53 years. Their last European adventure, in 1973, began by knocking out a Hungarian club: Vasas Budapest.
● Celje (Slovenia) — The only club in the field to change coach after the competition had effectively begun, sacking the man who won them the title and the qualification.
Jagiellonia Białystok (Poland) — Knocked out Rangers, with the same coach who took over as caretaker in 2023.
Omonia (Cyprus) — The only club here as a result of losing a penalty shootout, then turning round a first-leg deficit in Belgium to win 4–2 at home.
Celta Vigo (Spain) — Knocked Lyon out of the Europa League last season, and now meet them again in the same competition.
Pot 4
● Hoffenheim (Germany) — Fifth in the Bundesliga and drawn from pot four, because the club has had almost no European football since 2018/19. The seeding punished them immediately.
Beşiktaş (Turkey) — A year ago they went out in a Conference League play-off and finished a season without a derby win for the first time in 41 years. Now they are second in Turkey with Vlahović, Trossard and Nübel.
● Torreense (Portugal) — The least likely participant in the competition: a second-division club with a 2,431-capacity ground that won the Portuguese Cup by beating Sporting.
Hapoel Beer-Sheva (Israel) — Knocked out Crvena zvezda 3–0, then lost a 2–1 lead 5–2 in Baku, and now play their “home” matches in Bucharest, in a rented ground.
N.E.C. Nijmegen (Netherlands) — Eliminated pot-one Olympiacos from Champions League qualifying, at home, in extra time.
OFI Crete (Greece) — The cleanest leap in the field: in 2025 they lost a cup final and a Super Cup, in 2026 they beat PAOK 3–2 in extra time to win the Greek Cup.
Lillestrøm (Norway) — The most romantic entry. A Norwegian power of the 1980s that has not been champion for 36 years, here as cup winners after an extra-time play-off.
Levski Sofia (Bulgaria) — The only club that did not win its way here but lost its way here: four Champions League qualifying rounds survived, then a drop into this competition.
Ararat-Armenia (Armenia) — Founded in 2017, playing out of a 1,428-capacity academy ground, and the first Armenian club ever to reach the Europa League league phase.
Five clubs are not playing at home
Worth knowing if you are planning to follow this competition anywhere other than Budapest. Five clubs in the field do not host their matches at their own ground:
| Club | Actual home venue |
|---|---|
| Hapoel Beer-Sheva | Bucharest, Romania |
| Union Saint-Gilloise | Leuven, Belgium |
| ● Torreense | Leiria, Portugal |
| Levski Sofia | Vasil Levski National Stadium |
| Ararat-Armenia | Republican Stadium |
Budapest matchday guide
The ground
Groupama Aréna — Üllői út 129, 1091 Budapest
Opened in 2014, operated by SPORTFIVE Hungary, and the home of Ferencváros. It holds roughly 22,000 for international matches — slightly fewer than for domestic league games, because media positions, UEFA allocations and the segregation of the away section all take seats out of use.
One warning that will save you ten minutes of confusion: UEFA does not call it the Groupama Aréna. Under the competition’s clean-stadium rules, sponsor names are stripped, and on UEFA’s own fixture pages the venue is listed as Ferencváros Stadion. It is the same building.
(For transparency: published capacity figures vary between 21,689 and 22,122 depending on the source and the configuration being described. The stadium operator’s own site gives 21,689. We have not found an officially published UEFA-match capacity, so we quote a rounded figure rather than a false-precise one.)
Getting to the stadium
The Groupama Aréna is one of the easier major stadiums in Europe to reach, for one reason: it is effectively on top of a metro station.
Metro M3 (blue line), Népliget station. The ground is about 100 metres from the exit — a two-minute walk. This is the route to use.
Trams 1 and 1A also serve the area.
Buses 901, 914, 914A, 918, 950 and 950A stop nearby, though most of these are night or suburban services.
There is no HÉV connection to the Groupama Aréna. Népliget is a metro station and long-distance coach hub, not a HÉV stop. If a guide tells you otherwise, it is wrong.
Because match-day service can be reinforced or diverted, check the current route in the BKK journey planner or the BudapestGO app on the day. The stadium’s own directions page was not reachable at the time of writing.
From the airport
Budapest Liszt Ferenc Airport (BUD) has two direct public transport options, and for anyone heading to the stadium they are not equivalent.
100E Airport Express runs 24 hours a day, direct to Kálvin tér and Deák Ferenc tér in the city centre, in about 40 minutes. It requires a dedicated airport ticket — ordinary Budapest travelcards are not valid on it on their own.
Bus 200E also runs 24 hours, accepts standard Budapest tickets and passes, and connects to the M3 metro at Kőbánya-Kispest.
For the stadium specifically, the 200E is the more logical route, because Népliget sits on the M3 line between Kőbánya-Kispest and the city centre. You are not doubling back.
We are not quoting a door-to-door journey time for that route, because no official one is published and we are not going to invent one. Run it in the BKK planner before you travel.
Tickets: read this before you book flights
This is the part of the guide most likely to change your travel plans, and it is not obvious from outside Hungary.
A Fradi supporter card is a precondition of buying a ticket. Ferencváros state this in every ticketing announcement for European matches: possession of the card is the first and indispensable requirement.
The card cannot be obtained online. According to the stadium’s official information, registration is done in person only, involves a photograph and a fingerprint, and requires valid identification and proof of address.
For a supporter flying in from Turin, Plzeň, Ljubljana or Lisbon, that is not a footnote. It means the card has to be dealt with on the ground in Budapest, which in practice means arriving before matchday rather than on it.
What we cannot confirm, and will not guess: exactly how the supporter-card requirement is applied to UEFA matches, how the proof-of-address condition works for non-residents, and whether it applies to supporters entering through the away section. The relevant page on the stadium site returned an error at the time of writing. If this affects your trip, get written confirmation from the Ferencváros ticket office before booking anything.
Away sector information — the section number, the allocation, and how visiting supporters buy — has not been published for any of the four matches at the time of writing. Under the competition regulations the home club must make at least five per cent of the stadium’s UEFA capacity available to visiting supporters, which at this ground is in the region of 1,100 seats. Visiting fans should follow their own club’s official ticketing channels.
Buy only through official channels. At the time of writing, what has been on sale is a four-match Europa League season pass; individual match tickets for the four home games had not been announced. Check the official Ferencváros channels for the current position.
How early to arrive
There is no officially published arrival guidance for these matches — no “be there ninety minutes before kick-off” from the club, the stadium or UEFA. Ferencváros ask supporters to arrive in good time to avoid entry queues and to not miss the start, without naming a figure.
We are not going to invent one. What we can say is structural: European nights have additional security screening compared with league matches, the away section is segregated, and gate-opening times for these fixtures have not been published either.
Road closures and access
Traffic restrictions and police closures around the ground on major match nights are decided per match and announced close to the date. Anything you read in advance — including here — should be treated as background rather than instruction. Check on the day.
What January actually feels like
Worth knowing before the Juventus match, because it is the one people will travel furthest for.
Budapest in January, using the Hungarian Meteorological Service’s 1991–2020 climate averages: a monthly mean of 0.0 °C, an average daily high of 3.0 °C, an average daily low of −2.5 °C, and 31 mm of precipitation across the month.
A match kicking off at 18:45 is played almost entirely in the part of the evening when the temperature is heading toward that daily minimum. In plain terms: a January evening in an open stand in Budapest is typically around or below freezing.
That is a climate average, not a forecast. The actual weather on 21 January 2027 cannot be derived from it, and a meaningful forecast will not exist until a few days before.
The honest summary
Four European nights, all at the same ground, all reachable in two minutes from a metro station, in a city where the stadium is not the logistical problem.
The logistical problems are these: a supporter card you cannot get remotely, two 21:00 kick-offs that empty a stadium near midnight, one January fixture in freezing conditions, and — for anyone coming from Italy in January — a match that cannot be done as a day trip. A 18:45 kick-off ends around 20:35. There is no realistic way to clear the stadium, reach the airport and fly out the same night.
Plan for an overnight. For most groups, plan for two.
Frequently asked questions
When do Ferencváros play Juventus? Thursday 21 January 2027, 18:45 local time, at the Groupama Aréna in Budapest. It is matchday seven of the eight-match league phase.
Where do Ferencváros play their home Europa League matches? All four are at the Groupama Aréna, Üllői út 129, Budapest. Each fixture was checked individually against UEFA’s match pages rather than assumed.
Why does UEFA call the stadium something else? Under UEFA’s clean-stadium rules, commercial sponsor names are not used during its competitions. On UEFA’s own pages the ground appears as Ferencváros Stadion. It is the same building.
Do I need a supporter card to attend? Ferencváros state that a Fradi supporter card is the first and indispensable condition of buying a ticket. According to official stadium information, the card can only be obtained in person, requires photographic and fingerprint registration, and requires valid identification and proof of address. How the proof-of-address condition applies to non-residents, and how the requirement applies to the away section, are not publicly clarified. Contact the Ferencváros ticket office directly before making travel plans.
How do I buy tickets? Only through official Ferencváros channels. At the time of writing, a four-match Europa League season pass had been released and individual match tickets for the four home games had not been announced. Visiting supporters should follow their own club’s official ticketing, not the home club’s.
How do I get to the Groupama Aréna? Metro line M3 (blue) to Népliget. The stadium is about 100 metres from the station — a two-minute walk. Trams 1 and 1A also serve the area. There is no HÉV connection.
How do I get there from the airport? Bus 200E connects the airport to the M3 metro at Kőbánya-Kispest, and Népliget is on that same line — so 200E plus M3 is the logical route to the ground. The 100E Airport Express goes directly to the city centre instead, in about 40 minutes, but requires a separate airport ticket.
Can I fly in and out on the same day for the Juventus match? Realistically, no. An 18:45 kick-off means a final whistle around 20:35 and a stadium clear around 21:00. There is no sensible way to reach the airport and depart the same evening. Plan for at least one night, and note that the supporter-card requirement may already force an earlier arrival.
How does the new Europa League format work? There are no groups. All 36 clubs sit in one table and each plays eight different opponents, four at home and four away. The top eight go directly to the round of 16. Ninth to 24th enter a two-legged knockout play-off in February. Twenty-fifth and below are eliminated.
Who are Ferencváros’s eight opponents? Celtic, Viktoria Plzeň, Torreense, Milan, Celje, Lech Poznań, Juventus and Hoffenheim.
Have Ferencváros ever beaten Juventus? Yes — in the 1965 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final in Turin, won 1–0 with a goal from Fenyvesi Máté. It remains the club’s greatest European night. The Fairs Cup was not a UEFA competition, which is why the trophy does not appear in UEFA’s records.
What is the final, and when? 26 May 2027 at Stadion Frankfurt. The winner enters the 2027/28 Champions League league phase and plays in the UEFA Super Cup.
About this guide
This guide is updated after each of the eight league phase matchdays. The live tracker at the top, the table, the form guide and the fixtures are rebuilt from UEFA’s official data; the rest is written to stay accurate for the whole season.
All fixtures, kick-off times and venues were checked individually against UEFA’s own match pages. Where a fact could not be confirmed from an official source, this guide says so rather than filling the gap.
Status day: 18 September 2026.
You must be logged in to post a comment.