Hungary´s Debrecen, a springboard for unknown players

A welcoming side but with limited funds, Debrecen, the Hungarian rookie in this season’s Champions League, has something else to offer: a leap to the bigger teams.

The Hungarian champions, who face French side Lyon in a Group E first leg match on Tuesday, are more than happy to have other teams poach their players.

“If there are clubs that are interested, we will not prevent our players from leaving,” coach Andras Herczeg said bluntly.

“It is difficult to hold on to good players,” he added soberly.

Club owner and businessman Gabor Szima might be the 32th richest man in the country, but the options of the club — estimated to make between one and two million euros in profit per year, according to the press — are still far from those of its Champions League rivals Fiorentina, Lyon or Liverpool.

The little white house that is home to its VIP club and management offices illustrates this point, much like the small stadium next door with its basic stands, as if hastily built in reaction to the club’s sudden elevation to Europe’s top footballing stage.

Without glittering results for almost a century, Debrecen, which was founded in 1902, hit the big time after taking home the national trophy four times in the last five years.

This success is partly due to the club’s investment in training young talents.

Debrecen has a whole line of youth teams, with players of all ages, and its reserve side is now playing at the top of the second division. From there, a few are regularly picked to move up in the ranks.

“Every year, a few players step up into the first division,” sports director Csaba Bartha said.

Only this year did Debrecen invest, for the first time in its history, in footballers from more renowned championships.

That is how Hungarian international Laszlo Bodnar (Dynamo Kiev, Roda, Salzburg), his compatriot Zoltan Szelesi (Cottbus, Strasbourg) and Frenchman Adamo Coulibaly (Anvers) arrived in the team.

However, the long-term objectives remain unchanged: “We want to be good sellers,” coach Herczeg noted.

And following Debrecen’s explosive entry into Europe’s most prestigious football league, the circle of potential buyers has now widened.

Not only the young players, but the more mature ones too can appreciate the springboard effect of the side’s entry into the Champions League.

“This is the last year of my contract here,” noted striker Gergely Rudolf, 24, a former player of French club Nancy.

“There have already been some offers this year but I absolutely wanted to play in these matches,” he said.

The 28-year-old Adamo Coulibaly, another striker and the club’s shooting star with four goals already this season, shares the same dream.

“Going on to a club in Germany or France, that would be great,” he said, despite only joining Debrecen this summer.

Qualification for the Champions League and Liverpool’s 1-0 struggle against the Hungarians on September 17 have already brought some results: the squad’s value has been boosted from about two million euros (2.9 million dollars) to 11.55 million euros, according to the specialised site transfermarkt.de.