Košice staged a comprehensive 4:0 victory over Dukla Michalovce in a club friendly match on Wednesday the tenth of September. The hosts put together a performance that looked nothing like their recent struggles, with their last outing ending in a heavy 1:4 defeat to Hur. To be fair, this result came less than three weeks after the visitors had beaten them 4:2 in their previous meeting.
The match took place at 15:30 local time, with Košice looking to bounce back from a run of mixed results. They had picked up two wins against Ferencváros AV19 in consecutive days, but those victories were sandwiched between losses to Starbulls Rosenheim and Hur. Dukla Michalovce arrived with their own momentum, having scored five goals against DEAK just seven days earlier.
Košice did not travel to make up the numbers against their Slovak rivals, and the result showed they had something to prove. By then they had already picked up two bookings in five minutes against Hur, suggesting they were playing with a bit of edge. The visitors had been dominant in the air from set plays in their previous encounter, but this time the home side controlled proceedings.
The final scoreline of 4:0 tells the story without needing minute-by-minute detail. Košice had the game won inside twenty minutes, as they often do when they find their rhythm. Dukla Michalovce, who had fallen apart after the opener in their last meeting, found themselves on the receiving end of a different story.
What this friendly means for either side remains to be seen, but the result gives Košice something to build on. They had nothing to do all evening against a Dukla side that had been running out of games in terms of finding consistency. The goal difference of four tells you everything about a match where one side simply outclassed the other.