Hospitality and Hustle in Budapest: A Champions League Night to Remember

BUDAPEST -- The photo above was taken from my seat at the Debrecen-Olympique Lyon UEFA Champions League game three weeks ago. I was not credentialed as a member of the press. In fact, I wasn't even in the stadium legally, and this seat was never sold for reasons that are pretty apparent.

On the surface, it might not make much sense that my experiences at the Julio Grondona, the Millerntor and Valley Parade were as rewarding as those at La Bombonera, the Olympiastadion and Highbury. But that's because attending a match in a foreign country is about so much more than the view. There are few better ways to delve into a place's character than by passing through (or in the Debrecen case, under) a turnstile. What happened three weeks ago was a memorable example, and will inspire me to cheer on Loki on Tuesday afternoon as it "hosts" Fiorentina.

I first visited Hungary in 2006, and was moved by the humble friendliness of the place. It is a country still coming to terms with the fall of communism and one that is well aware that its transition to a prosperous market economy has been more sluggish than some of its neighbors. Budapest is monumental and beautiful, yet remains years away from taking on the Epcot Center character of a city like Prague. That's a good thing, at least for the tourist. The sleep that Hungary is still rubbing from its eyes is what makes it authentic and livable. It's what motivates the people to put their best foot forward. I've yet to meet a Hungarian who won't try to exhaust their English in the attempt to hold a real conversation, or one who won't go out of their way to be helpful.

That friendliness contrasts with their malaise. I also haven't met many Hungarians who missed the chance to lament their situation. It's an honest sadness. They are a people with ancient roots who have spent much of their history under the thumb of foreigners. On the soccer field, their slide from the summit to the fringes has been profound. The only Hungarian player you've ever heard of, Ferenc Puskas, died three years ago at age 79. The national side, famous for its 31-game unbeaten streak in the early 1950s, its three Olympic gold medals and its stunning loss to Germany in the 1954 World Cup final, hasn't qualified for a major tournament since 1986.

In 2006, two Ujpest fans I met on Vaci Utca in Budapest told me how fortunate I was to be a soccer fan from the United States! That autumn the country's most popular team, Ferencvaros, was playing in the second division thanks to financial irregularities. The army turned out for the match I attended at Ulloi Uti. Ujpest had been kicked out of their own stadium because of hooliganism and was playing at a cement pit down the road. Puskas' famous club, Honved, hadn't won the league since 1993.

Our conception of European soccer tends to focus on the dozen or so corporate superclubs able to afford all the best players and market their jerseys overseas. In many more places, the game is poor and gritty. There are no megastores or dedicated television channels. Soccer in these places still taps into old rivalries and memories. The tickets are cheap, the facilities are in disrepair and the best players are ghosts. The sport serves as a map revealing the fault lines in a given city or country. In some places people are divided by politics. In others it's religion, socioeconomic standing or geography. To learn more, head to the stadium.

I have a friend in Budapest. I'll call her Maggie, mostly because no one who played in a role in the events taking place three weeks ago seemed too thrilled about having their identities made public. Maggie is in her late 20s and is from a small town about 80 miles from the capital. Opportunities there were slim, so she made her way to Budapest. She's well educated and whip smart -- I have the utmost respect for anyone who can speak that impossible language and still has enough left over to be funny in English. She does occasionally need the Magyar-to-Angol dictionary to flesh out her point. When I met her three years ago she was employed by a small travel agency. She now works in the head office of a bus company. She's fortunate to be making about $800 a month.

"I am unlucky to be born in this place," she told me. Maggie has had to scrape for everything she has, and she questions the means under which she acquired it. "I have my job because I know somebody. I have this flat because I know somebody," she said. She gets a break on the rent in her small but brightly-decorated Kispest apartment because the owner, a friend, is doing her a favor. She wishes she could get by solely on merit and that there were more opportunities for someone with her skills. I countered with the argument that being a person who people want to help says a lot about her, and that she consistently returned that faith with kindness and good performance. That is the way the system works there. I don't think it made her feel better.

Yet there was a total genuineness to her generosity. She insisted on paying for my relatively expensive train ticket to Ljubljana and took a day off work to show me around. Good friends of hers, a neighboring couple without a full-time job between them, spent hours cooking wild boar stew for me one night and took Maggie and me on a day-long road trip to Esztergom and Visegrad the following day. It was a friend of that couple's, we'll call him Peter, who sneaked me into the Champions League game that Tuesday night.

Peter obviously had never met me, and I'm not sure how well he knew Maggie. But it didn't matter. We were friends of friends. We were connected. As soon as Maggie and her neighbors knew about my interest in the match, the wheels were in motion.

The Hungarian champion, Debreceni VSC, plays in a 10,000-seat stadium in the far east of the country. It was deemed unsuitable for Champions League play by UEFA, so Loki (so-called because its founders were associated with the railroad) was forced to stage its home games at the 68,000-seat Puskas Ferenc Stadion in Budapest, 120 miles to the west. I figured it wouldn't be hard to get tickets. I was wrong.

For the first time in a long time, Hungary was on the big stage. No Soproni Liga team had advanced to the competition's group stage in 14 years, and Debrecen's big debut was sold out. A 1-0 setback at Anfield to open Group E play had lifted hopes somewhat, and tens of thousands had bought their tickets early to see Loki take on Lyon. One man outside the stadium was selling his pair for nearly 100 euro.

Maggie's friends, the couple, drove us into the city center, where we met Peter and his five companions at a gas station. They hit the McDonald's next door, pounded a few beers in the parking lot and invited us into their minivan, which we then took toward the stadium. Nobody really explained to me what was going on, and I don't think Maggie was completely sure either. Kickoff was approaching and the roads outside Puskas were gridlocked. We neared the stadium, pulled the van onto an island in the middle of the street and parked. Peter spoke no English and said little, and Maggie informed me that everything would be okay. Our hosts bought more beers from a vendor near the gates and just stood around and waited as ticketed fans jostled past. They were nonchalant and confident. The minutes rolled by. I had no idea what was happening or how we would ever get in, and told Maggie that if we didn't I was happy to just watch on television.

The game kicked off, and Peter gave us a nod. We found a path near the gate, snaked our way through and Peter approached a burly security guard dressed in something that resembled riot gear. They exchanged quick kisses on the cheek, the guard gestured to the man at the turnstile, and we walked under and in. Nobody around us said a word. I jogged quickly toward the stadium, half expecting someone to be chasing us.

After a few moments standing on the concourse we made our way to the empty seats near the corner flag. By then, Lyon was ahead 2-0. Still sort of dumbstruck by the ease of our entry, I tried to explain to Maggie the economic disparities on display in front of us. She understood. In the 24th minute, Sidney Govou made it 3-0. But the fans stayed behind a team that wasn't really theirs, cheering "Hajra Loki!" as Lyon eased off the gas pedal. It ended 4-0. "They kept trying until the end," Lyon coach Claude Puel said.

The next day, Peter invited me over to the small rowhouse in Kispest he shares with his mother. After having the "honor" of sneaking me into a game he thought I deserved a gift, naturally, and presented me with a Hungarian national team scarf that now is hanging on my office wall.

I told Maggie that I thought the experience might make for an interesting story. She bristled. I tried to explain that the impressive generosity of her friends, not to mention the whole madcap grey area under which the entire country seems to operate, might interest American fans who appreciate a good bit of soccer sociology. She was worried Hungary might seem corrupt or lawless, perhaps unsympathetic.

To me, there was nothing corrupt about what happened on Sept. 29. The guard who allowed our entry to the Champions League game received nothing in return. He was a friend. In fact, during the second half he came over to the fence you see in the photo and had an animated chat with Peter and his crew, in full view of anyone who cared to take notice. Theoretically, that guard risked his job for that relationship. What he did, what Peter did, what Maggie's friends did and what she herself did during my three days in Hungary was motivated purely by friendship, brotherhood and a collective desire to add a few small pleasures to life in a country and an economy that has yet to catch up with its people. Perhaps someday, one of Peter's friends gladly will do a favor for the guard's sister. If I'm able to track down Peter's address, I'll send him the Alex Ovechkin souvenir puck he covets. It all works out.

On Tuesday afternoon, Debrecen will entertain Fiorentina in Budapest. "We know this will be difficult because Fiorentina are a European-class side who have players who can come up with the unexpected at any time," Loki coach Andras Herczeg said with typical Magyar humility.

I don't know if this game is sold out as well, but I'm confident Peter and his van-mates will be there, hoping for a good evening with friends and an upset that would add a bit of continental glamor to a place they regard as kind of dreary. I disagree. I think Hungary is beautiful, inside and out, and nowhere was that more evident than at the stadium.