Paks and Debrecen met in the NB I regular season on Friday evening, with the visitors taking all three points with a 4-2 victory. The result leaves Paks ninth on eight points after seven games, while Debrecen climb to eighth with nine points from the same number of fixtures.
Ákos Szendrei opened the scoring in the sixth minute and doubled Paks' advantage twelve minutes later, putting the hosts ahead before twenty minutes had elapsed. By then things came to a head in the other direction, with Zsolt Haraszti pulling one back just before the break. Adrián Guerrero Aguilar added a second for Debrecen on thirty-nine minutes, and Paks suddenly found themselves chasing the game.
Both managers made changes around the hour mark, but it was Debrecen who took control. Barna Tóth scored in the eighty-first minute to make it four, and Szendrei's brace was no longer enough to salvage anything for the hosts.
Paks dominated possession at fifty-one per cent and registered thirteen shots on target, yet they could only convert two. Debrecen were more efficient, hitting six of their fourteen attempts. The hosts created three big chances while the visitors managed four, and the difference between the two sides was not so much in opportunity as in finishing.
We had backed Paks to win, though confidence was only forty-two per cent. The match went the other way, and it was Debrecen's ability to punish mistakes that did the damage. The own goal from Gabor Vas in the seventy-first minute broke what little resistance remained.
