Vasas SC

Kálmán Mészöly played for Vasas through the years the club still measured itself against the best sides in Hungary, and went to the 1966 World Cup carrying that shirt with him. László Sárosi did something similar a decade earlier, captaining the national side while he wore the colours of a club built by workers in the metal and iron trades of Angyalföld, in Budapest, in 1911. That district still gives the supporters their line — Mindörökké, Angyalföld! — Forever, Angyalföld.

The football followed a similar rhythm of rise and interruption. Since then the trophies have stopped coming, though the rivalries that defined those years did not fade with them. Games against MTK Budapest carried a political charge in the socialist era, when Vasas answered to the ministry of heavy industry and MTK to the ministry of the interior — a distinction that outlived the ministries themselves and still colours how the fixture is talked about. Ferencváros and Újpest complete the set of derbies that Budapest builds its football calendar around.

The old stadium held 9,000 people before it came down in 2016. Vasas played its home games elsewhere while a new one rose in its place, opening in 2019 and named for Rudolf Illovszky. Its stands carry sections named after the players the club has chosen to remember — Sárosi and Mészöly among them, alongside others from the same run of championships.

The new Illovszky Rudolf Stadion holds 5,054.