Szombathelyi Haladás

András Schäfer did not have to reach into his own pocket for Haladás in the summer of 2024, but he did — 15 million forints and a 1% stake, enough to keep a club he once played for from folding outright. The Hungarian Football Federation had refused Szombathelyi Haladás a licence over financial irregularities despite a 14th-place finish in Nemzeti Bajnokság II, the operating company shut down that July, and the club was shut out of both NB III and the Magyar Kupa. What continued under the name Szombathelyi MÁV Haladás VSE started again in the third tier, a long way down from where the club had spent most of its life.

That life ran to 51 seasons in the top flight without ever taking the championship, which is closer to the truth of Haladás than any single trophy. Ten times the club won Nemzeti Bajnokság II and went back up; the pattern of leaving the top division and returning to it became the club's own kind of consistency. The nearest it came to something bigger was third place in 2008–09, and in the Europa League the following season it beat Irtysh Pavlodar before Elfsborg ended the run in the second qualifying round.

Founded in 1919 in Szombathely and playing in green and white at the Haladás Sportkomplexum, the club carries a rivalry with Zalaegerszegi TE that supporters call the Nyugat-magyarországi El Clásico, sharpened after a Haladás fan died in clashes with ZTE supporters in 1986.

No one wore the shirt longer in the public imagination than Gábor Király, capped 108 times for Hungary and still playing at Euro 2016 in his forties, tracksuit bottoms and all.