Opposition insight for Milan-Ferencvaros: Form, injuries, predicted XI and more
On Thursday evening, Ferencvaros will travel to San Siro to face AC Milan in the Europa League, in a must-win game for the Rossoneri.
It’s already at that stage for Milan; if they want to qualify for the Round of 16 automatically, they must beat everyone in front of them. With three points from nine available, Ruben Amorim expressed his frustrations with this season so far, and they need to prove themselves tomorrow.
➤ Manager: Balazs Borbely ➤ Form (all comps): D-W-W-W-W (most recent) ➤ Top scorer (Europa League): Kristoffer Zachariassen – 5 ➤ Most assists (Europa League): Yusuf Bamidele & Veljko Birmančević – 2 ➤ Injuries & suspensions: Bero, Otvos.
Ferencvaros went into last season as defending league champions under head coach Robbie Keane, but were forced to settle for second place. They did win the domestic cup though, and got to the last-16 of the Europa League before being beaten by Braga.
Keane left before the 2026-27 campaign, and he was replaced by Balazs Borbely who came from Gyor ETO, the club that have been one of the surprise packages in recent years, even winning the Nemzeti Bajnokság I (league title) last season.
It was quite a quiet summer for the Budapest-based team, as their big splash was Veljko Birmancevic from Sparta Praha for €2m. Matus Bero and Nathan Zohore arrived on free transfers, while Adam Nagy joined for a low fee from Spezia.
There were a few more exits though: Elton Acolatse, Zsombor Gruber, Mohammed Abu Fani, Gabi Kanichowsky and Cebrail Makreckis all left for figures between €2.5m and €1m, while five departed on free transfers too.
It has been a good start for Borbely, given that Ferencvaros are undefeated in their last 20 matches across all competitions, and they are dreaming of securing direct qualification to the last-16 of the competition.
The Zöldek have three wins from three, occupying fourth place in the overall standings behind Benfica, Bayer Leverkusen and Bournemouth. To qualify for the group stage, they overcame Twente, Gornik Zabrze and Trabzonspor, beating the latter 5-0 on aggregate.
An away win against Celtic kicked off their league phase, following by victories against Viktoria Plzen and Torreense. Overall, the Hungarian outfit have scored nine times and have conceded just three in what has been a perfect start in the UEL.
Ferencvaros’ only defeat came in their league debut on July 26 (2-4 against Baksi FC). Since then, they have gone on a long unbeaten streak of five wins and five draws, climbing to third place, just two points behind league leaders Gyor and with a game in hand.
In terms of injury news, the visitors will be missing Slovakian midfielder Matus Bero, while Bence Otvos is recovering from an ACL injury and will not take part. Aside from that, they have a clean bill of health.
Borbely’s side have so far alternated between a 4-1-4-1 formation – deploying former Liverpool player Nabi Keita or Adamy Nagy (who played for Bologna and Spezia) as midfielders – and a 4-2-3-1 to offer a bit more width.
A few rotations are expected from the weekend’s game – where they cruised to a 2-0 win – and the first set comes in defence. Radnoti, Nagy, Zohore and O’Dowda are all expected to return to the starting XI, with Gomez being the only survivor to retain his place.
Maiga will find a new partner at the base of the midfield in the aforementioned Nagy, whilst Zachariassen will start ahead of them.
On the wings, it’s an unchanged set-up with leading goalscorer Zachariassen and Birmancevic starting. Then, Yusuf is expected to return to the starting XI.
Predicted Ferencvaros XI (4-2-3-1): Radnoti; O. Nagy, Zohore, Gomez, O’Dowda; Maiga, A. Nagy; Arzani, Zachariassen, Birmancevic; Yusuf.
Predicted bench: A Varga, Dibusz, Osvath, Raemaekers, Cadu, Madrasz, Corbu, Bamidele, Bero, Joseph, Levi, Arzani, Rommens, Pappoe, Z Varga, Keita.
