Soproni Vasutas Sportegylet (SVSE) club was founded in 1921, but during the early years basketball was not well-known in our country. However, it was rapidly gaining popularity in Europe, clubs were being formed in many countries, with SVSE joining the trend after the end of World War II, first establishing a men's and soon after a women's basketball section.
Unfortunately, after a while it became obvious that only the women's club would survive, competing for many years in the Second Division of the national championship, eventually promoting to the First Division Group B in 1986. This came about after the club's management had decided to make the necessary resources for the big step up in standards available. By 1989 we had reached the highest level of the domestic championship, First Division Group A. It marked the start of a long history of success for Sopron's basketball, which continues to this day. There was a couple of sixth places, which were the harbingers of later and greater achievements, the first of which occurred in 1991, when SVSE reached the Hungarian Cup final, only to fall at the last hurdle to a BEAC team which boasted among its members Bubu Balogh.
At this point András Magyar was recruited as the head coach of the club in time, and he proceeded to shape a squad that wrote its name into Hungarian basketball history during the 1992-93 season. Bubu Balogh returned to her homeland from a professional stint in France to join SVSE and led the team to a convincing championship title. In the championship's playoff deciders SVSE overcame MTK 3-0, with Bubu scoring 45 points in the final match which the Sopron girls won 91-87 in front of a sold-out crowd at the University Gym. Those who were lucky enough to be there, will never forget the celebrations at Sopron's Main Square later that night.
The following season SVSE's ladies had to set about their task without the services of Bubu, who was preparing for the birth of her first child. The team moved its home games to the larger capacity Sportcentrum and began to enjoy the security provided by the substantial financial support of a major commercial enterprise, GYSEV Rt. However, repeated success didn't come easily and in 1997 GYSEV's president, Dr János Berényi, decided the solution may lie in bringing back to Sopron its European class favourite Judith "Bubu" Balogh. Bubu's return also marked the arrival of her husband and outstanding coach, Saeed Armaghani. Efforts to substantially strengthen the playing staff were crowned with success, marked by the decision to move to Sopron by one of Hungary's best young talents Tímea Béres as well as the Lithuanian-Ukrainian Euro champion duo of Dalia Kurtinaitiene and Sveta Orehova. This terrific trio had a major role in the team's Ronchetti Cup win, as well as silver medals in both the Hungarian Championship and Cup. The win in the Ronchetti Cup was the first by a Hungarian club in a decade and a half.
However the ambitions of the club's leadership weren't quite fulfilled by this outstanding season - the aim was to win a national championship gold medal and the steady stream of new signings promised that all the effort would be crowned by success in the foreseeable future. In spite of a series of injuries, the team only suffered one defeat in the regular season, but could only manage a silver medal in the Hungarian Cup and also suffered elimination in the Ronchetti Cup. However, after several years' break, Sopron could once again welcome home - and deservedly so - the National Championship trophy after a 3-1 victory over eternal rivals Pécs.
In 1999/2000 our star, Bubu Balogh, is taking an indefinite break to await the birth of her second child and the international players have all gone to new clubs. The replacements were mainly of a younger generation. A respectable debut performance in the Euroleague. We reached the round of 8 in the Euroleague. In the Hungarian Championship and in the Hungarian Cup we have only come in 2nd place.
In 2000/2001 New faces in the team. Bubu came back and Alena Kovacova and Zuzana Zirkova also came to our team from the Euroleague-Winner SCP Ruzomberok and Eva Seres from Ferencvaros, too. 2nd place in the Hungarian Championship against Pecsi VSK again (3-2), and round of 8 in the Euroleague.
The 2001/2002 season was successful again. We started the season with 2 new point-guards. The australian Tully Bevilaqua and the young Szilvia Török. And a new coach, Sándor Farkas. The autumn was fantastic. We won and won and won. In December we fell out of the good rhythm. So we couldn't reach the FINAL4 and we got silver in the Hungarian Cup. But in June we won the Hungarian Championship against PVSK with an easy 3-0.
Our next year wasn't the brightest. Besides, we managed to form such a players' group during the transfer window which was qualified for the biggest aims. Eva Nemcova, Alessandra, Oxana Zakalyuzhnaya and Gordana Bogojevic also transferred to us. The bad luck started when Eva Nemcová left our team which led to the point that we didn't reach our goals set in each competition. But we didn't break down and we started to get better at the end of the season and to build our young team whose foundation was coach Natalia Hejkova, who spent the last months together with our team.
2003/2004. We built a new young team, the team of the future! We signed two skilled players, Iveta Bielikova and Sanja Vesel. Besides them only young players played in the team, most of whom were from our junior team who spent a year away on loan to get skilled. We reached our aims! Our young team developed step by step. We had a lot of memorable victories in Euroleague as well as in the Hungarian Championship.
2004/2005. We wanted to make another step forward. We brought back a young player Orsolya Zsovár, who spent the previous year on loan. But she got injured in August. We signed a contract with the 20-year-old center, Ivana Matovic, and Lucie Blahuskova! The Czech player, Lucie Blahuskova was young too, but had already written her name to the Book of the European Basketball. She was the MVP of the European Championship in Greece (2003). We had a lot of problems that year. We started the season really good. The high point was our win in Brno at the end of November. But something broke after that in the team. We lost important games in the Euroleague, so we had to play against Gdynia in the play-off. We lost both games. We had a lot of injuries after X-mas, too. We lost key players like Gordana Kovacevic and Anna Vajda for a long time and other players had injuries for weeks, too. But we fought with 120%, and reached the Hungarian final, which was our goal! We played some good games against PVSK in the final, but we couldn’t stop them. So we got silver medals.
2005/06. We signed important contracts with very good players. Our 2 key-players, Lucie Blahuskova and Ivana Matovic signed for 2 more yearswith us, until 2007! The biggest sensation happened in the middle of April, when we agreed for the next year with Nikki Teasley! The WNBA Champion and All-Star MVP Nikki Teasley was the first player who broke Ticha Penicheiro's record after six years with her 6.1 average in assists in the WNBA! We signed a 1+2 year contract with Réka Cserny, who would come back from the States, where she had very good years at the University of Harvard. We signed the Hungarian national team player Edit Eördögh, who came back to us after 3 years. We signed young Hungarian point guard, Boglárka Kocsis, and some of our young talent also.
We started the season with some unexpected lost games. That’s why we started the the Euroleague Play-off from a bad position. But we got a big victory over Ekaterinburg, and reached the round of 8 by winning 2 games. For the FINAL4 we had to play against Valenciennes, but we had no chance, they played better and got through to the FINAL4. In the Hungarian Cup final we had a big chance to win at home against Pécs, but we lost in the last minute. In the Hungarian Championship Finals Pécs won 3-0.
2006/07. After 3 years we switched to a new coach and signed with Norbert Székely who was our assistant coach on a two-year contract. Nikki Teasley left our team, and so we were searching for a new point guard too, and signed with the Hungarian national team player Bernadett Németh from Zalaegerszeg. This year was the most successful in our history. In the Euroleague we stepped into the round of 8 again, where we couldn't stop the Russian 'mega-team', CSKA Samara. In April, for the first time in our club’s history we won the Hungarian Cup against Szeged! In the Final we played against Pécs, and on the 15th of May we won the championship, after 5 dramatic games, 3-2! We will never forget that enchanting season.
2007/08. We replayed the golden season! In Summer we signed with young talented players: Jelena Milovanovic, Dóra Horti, Barbara Semsei and Iva Sliskovic. In the first half of the season we couldn’t play on the same level, but after the Christmas break we started to be stronger step by step. We reached the play-off in the Euroleague, but there we had no chance against Bourges. In the Hungarian Cup we showed our best performance in the year! In the Final, in Pécs we won 77-63 against the host team. In the championship we walked easily into the final, where we started the games in Pécs. We won the first game and also the second! We lost the third in Pécs, but on the fourth game in Sopron we have shown our best face and won the game and with this victory the championship too!
2008/2009. Historical Season! Well we signed again with young players: Tijana Krivacevic (Hungarian national team player), Kathleen Macleod (Australia) and Amber Holt (USA). At the end of November we lost our point guard Kathleen Macleod for a month, because she had appendicitis surgery, but we were able to win without her in Pécs, in Brno and against CSKA Moscow! With these victories we built a strong ground for another nice result. In the Euroleague we had to fight against Bourges Basket, one of the icons of the European women’s basketball. We were on top form, and were able to win in Bourges, and after that at home, too. So we reached the FINAL4 with the youngest team of the Euroleague! It was the biggest result in our history! In the Hungarian Cup we lost in the final at home against Pécs, but we were preparing at this time for the FINAL4. In Salamanca we finished in the 4th place, which was an unbelievable achievement! We celebrated in Spain together with our fans and sponsors. After the F4 we were facing another challenge in the Hungarian championship. The opponent team in the final was Szeged. We won 3-1, so we stayed on top of the national league! This was our 3rd championship title in a row! What a great season!
2009/2010. After the historical season we tried to keep the team together. It was almost successful, only Kathleen Macleod left us. We signed with two young players: Maja Miljkovic (Serbia), Zsófia Varga (Hungarian national team player). The pre-season started perfectly: we got an invitation to the International Tournament to Ekaterinburg, where we had strong games against USA, Ekaterinburg and Prague. It was a big honor! But this was the last golden moment in our season... We started the Euroleague with two important victories, but after that we had a lot of injuries. We missed a lot of players from our roster, and we lost many games not only in the Euroleague but also in the Hungarian Championship. In the last round we played against Prague at home, but we couldn’t take our last chance to reach the play-off (93-96). For the remaining two months of the season we signed with an American point guard, Kristi Toliver. With her we won the regular season in the Hungarian Championship with a great finish. One week later we lost the Hungarian Cup in Pécs against Mizo with a last second shot by Anna Vajda (70-72). That was a sore defeat, but the Hungarian Championship final ended worse. In the play-off something broke in our team effort, and we lost 3-0 against Pécs, two games of which on our home court... That was the end of a difficult, washed-out season.
2010/2011. We refreshed our roster with good players, including a "big name", Angel McCoughtry, who was one of the best players in the WNBA. Only Diana Taurasi scored more points than Angel. The other newcomers were: Zane Tamane, Katya Abramzon, Boglárka Kocsis, Diána Fûrész, Tímea Czank and Fanni Szabó. The season started badly, because Boglárka Kocsis had to finish her career bacause of health issues. In the first round of the Euroleague we lost Tímea Czankfor the rest of the season, too, because of a serious knee injury. But in this situation we started the season with good results in the Euroleague and also in the Hungarian Championship. However, at the end of the year one of our main sponsors, MKB Bank stepped back from sponsorship. Our management decided to sell our key-player, Angel to the Turkish team, Fenerbahce. We also let Katya go, back to Israel. After these transactions we had the chance to sign with few accomplished players who had played for us before: Edit Eördögh, Dóra Horti, Bernadett Németh. Marissa Coleman from the States also signed for us for the rest of the season. So in the middle of the season we had to build a "new team". It wasn’t a surprise, that we had a difficult January, but we started to be better and better. We reached the play-off in the Euroleague, where (round of 16) our opponent was the famous star club, Ros Casares Valencia. We made a miracle in Sopron, when we beat the Spanish team. But in Spain we had no chance, so they reached the round of 8. For us remained the "Hungarian line".
The Hungarian Cup final was in Körmend, where we played the Final against Pécs. They killed us one week before in the last round of the regular season, but in Körmend we were the better team! Marissa got injured in the first quarter, but this didn’t break us and we have shown a really great performance, and won the Hungarian Cup! With this nice result we were looking forward to the championship play-off. In the final we lost the first 2 games against Pécs, and the third battle was in Pécs. Everybody expected the success of Pécs, but we came back to the final! We won in Pécs and the 4th game in Sopron, too. So the 5th game decided about the chamiponship. And what a game! In one of the most exciting finals games we were able to win after overtime in Pécs! That was our 7th championship gold medal in our history! We finished with this great success an unforgettable season!
2011/2012. After a beautiful season we knew, the next would be much harder. One of our most important players, Kata Honti decided to go to Valencia. We had to let Zane, Amber and Marissa go, too. We tried to build a more "Hungarian" team, so we signed only one foreign player, Olexandra Kurasova, who came back to Sopron after a maternity leave. We signed a contract with Zsófia Fegyverneky also, who came from the rival Pécs. The other new players were the Hungarian-Australian Hanna Zavecz and Sara Krnjic. In Euroleague we were strong at home, but abroad we won only one game, in Tarbes. So we had no chance to reach the play-off.
It seemed, in Hungary we were stronger than our rivals. We didn’t loose any games during the regular season! We signed also with Bernadett Németh, who came back from Good Angels Kosice. Győr organized the Hungarian Cup Final4, where we won our 4th Cup gold medal in our history. In the final we beat the host team, Győr. We wanted to sweep the championship title, too. Until the first game of the final it seemed, it would be easy. We killed Győr at the first game in Sopron by 19, but after that we lost 2 games. It was really a shock for us! In the 4th we stood up from the floor, but the 5th game was again a nightmare for us. We lead 55-49 at the 35-minute mark, but in the last 5 minutes we couldn’t score and lost the final against a highly motivated Győr. One gold and one silver medal, the result of the season. It wasn’t a tragedy, but altogether the end was disappointing.
2012/2013. We stayed on the path we started many-many years ago. We refreshed our squad and let a lot of players go. We built a fully motivated team, with a strong starting five and a young motivated bench, so we signed players who were ready for that: Jelena Milovanovic, Shenise Johnson, Anita Teilane, Orsolya Zsovár, Szandra Pál. In December we had to make few changes. Hanna Zavecz had to go back to Australia because of a serious injury. We signed Amber Holt for her position, who had played for us earlier. Anita Teilane also left the club, but we reactivated the former national team player Réka Cserny, who finished her career earlier, but decided to help us again back then.
We had a historical season! In Euroleague we played many good games, also against one of the strongest clubs in Europe, but lost most of them in the last few minutes. That was really frustrating. In our last game we won in Romania against Targoviste, but in the last round, when we were free, Kosice couldn’t win against Targoviste, so we didn’t reach the play-off. We organized the Hungarian Cup Final4, and on this weekend we celebrated our first championship title, which we won 20 years before. We played very well and we won in the final against Győr by 27 points. This Hungarian Cup title was our third in a row! In the Hungarian Championship we had no rivals! We made a historical season! We won our 8th Championship title, and without any lost games! Two weeks later we traveled to Kosice to the Slovakian-Hungarian Championship Final4. In the semi-final, without Amber Holt, we won against Ruzomberok, but in the final we couldn’t stop the organizer. But that silver medal was a very nice ending of the season for us!
2013/2014We made few changes in our roster, and signed also with a new coach, Mr. Igor Polenek from Serbia. Our new players were: Kelly Faris, Tianna Hawkins, Katarina Tetemondova, Dragana Stankovic and Zsófia Simon. Our season had its ups and downs, and the finish was disappointing. We reached our main aim, to go the Eurolegaue play-off, and we played final in the Middle European League. But on the other side we lost the Hungarian Cup Final against PEAC-Pécs, and we lost against them in the semi-final of the Hungarian Championship, too, 2-1 (two games by only one point...). After that we stood up from the floor and won against DVTK 2-0, but this bronze medal didn’t shine brightly for us and our supporters. We had a difficult season, with a lot of problems, and that affected the end of the season, too.
2014/15 We have left the Euroleague after 16 years, and started in Eurocup Women. We signed contracts with three young players from abroad, the Serbian talent, Aleksandra Crvendakic, and two American talents, Bria Hartley and Kayla McBride. The Hungarian national team-player Nóra Nagy-Bujdosó signed a contract with the club as well, but she could spend only a month with us as she got pregnant. We started the season very well in the Hungarian Championship and in the Eurocup too. We haven't lost any games until the end of January, when we started to prepare for the Eurocup Play-off, and so lost a game at home against PEAC-Pécs. Before that game we signed a contract until the end of the season with Hungarian national team player Tijana Krivacevic, who arrived from Kosice. With her our dream was to get to the Eurocup semi-final, but in the round of eight, Maccabi came as a train and simply killed us. We had no chance to go further. After that nightmare we had a game in Győr, where we could win and we finished in first place in the Regular Season of the Hungarian Championship. At this point we have changed the head coach. László Sterbenz gave a new boost to the team and won the Hungarian Cup against DVTK Miskolc easily. That was a great evening! In the play-off we had no difficulties until the final, where the opponent was the team of Miskolc again. That final was exciting, high level, simply brilliant! We had a 2-1 lead when we played in Miskolc and could win in front of 2500 fans of Miskolc by 2 points, and so the Championship was ours! We finished a difficult, exciting and beautiful season with 2 gold medals!
2015/16With that success we arrived to the next season, when we returned to Euroleague with a very young team. Fegyverneky gave birth to a boy in spring and she returned. From Miskolc came to us the Australian shining star, Abby Bishop, but a serious injury prevented her from joining our team. Dragana Stankovic also left us after failing the medical check-ups before the season. To replace her we added Louice Halvarsson to the roster. We signed contracts with young players like Bernadett Határ and Debóra Dubei for 3 years, and our young talent, Virág Weninger also got a 3-year professional contract. In the roster we could find two other young players, Laura Aldazabal and Dominika Böröndy. We hoped, we could make our supporters and fans happy with our very young team that year!
So we began the season with some unexpected difficulties. Even though we managed to win the first two league games, we suffered a hurtful 34-point loss in Lille in Euroleague. That defeat really got to us, and resulted in our first loss on the domestic stage against PINKK, which was followed by yet another big upset against Schio away from home concluding that nightmare of a week. After that we beat DVTK at home and finally got our first – and last – victory in Euroleague overcoming Salamanca 73-67. We were still struggling on international level, but domestically, we found our rhythm and came up with an impressive 73-96 win over local rivals Győr on the road.
It also helped that we had added some new players to the roster with Croatian player Ana Lelas, and Kata Honti, who wasn’t feeling well in her team in Turkey. However, we lost Louice Halvarsson due to a serious injury to her Achilles. We said goodbye to the Euroleague season in February following a loss to Kosice, and then turned towards the domestic campaign. In the Hungarian Cup in Miskolc we took the first two steps easily cruising past our opponents, but we were stopped in the final by the hosts. After that we made it to the league final as well, where we beat Győr three times in a row to claim the trophy for the 10th time in club history!
2016/17
As Zoltán Török said in the previous year’s roster announcement, they wanted to create a roster together with the coaching staff that is the ideal mix of experience and youth and they also wanted to take steps forward in Euroleague. The international players were selected according to that plan. That is how we signed 29-year-old Yvonne Turner from Kraków. We selected Swedish player Binta Drammeh for the small forward position, and under the rim we acquired Serbian European champion Danielle Page and Australian post player Cayla George. However, we had to make changes in the roster before the season because Danielle Page couldn’t pass the medical check-up. We signed Sara Krnjic back to replace her.
We started the season on a high note at home against BEAC, but fell short against Szekszárd and Győr after that. Knowing that it was considered a big surprise that we were able to come away with a win from Polkowice in a double-overtime thriller in Euroleague. Before the FIBA international window in November we also surprised Bourges at home. Besides these big victories it was great news for us that our team captain Zsófia Fegyverneky signed a 3-year contract extension and Yvonne Turner also singed a contract with us for two more years. We couldn’t be happy for long, though, because Binta Drammeh suffered a serious injury in a game against PEAC, and we had to replace her with our former player Shenise Johnson.
Even though we strengthened our roster with Tijana Ajdukovic as well, we were unable to make it out of the group in Euroleague, so we had to focus on the Hungarian competitions. At the end of February we celebrated the 100 000th point scored in club history. We lost a game in Miskolc which also cost us our first place in the regular season. Before the play-offs we had to take part in the Hungarian Cup final, which we managed to win for the 7th time!
In the league play-offs we went past ZTE and Győr easily and were facing Szekszárd, the surprise team of the season, who also had the home-court advantage in the series. That didn’t matter for us, because we took it away in the first game already, and won the series 3-1 for our 11th league title.
2017/18
Despite the gold medals in both the league and the cup the board has decided to make changes in multiple aspects with the obvious goal to get our prestige back on the international stage, and for our young talents to make steps forward. The Basque professional Roberto Iniguez was named the new head coach, who brought his own Spanish coaching staff along with him. The project that was planned to last two years brought changes to the roster as well. Jelena Milovanovic came back to Sopron for her fifth season, and the other Serbian player Tina Jovanovic was a reinforcement in the paint as well. We also signed the talented Spanish guard Angela Salvadores, and Brazilian national team center Clarissa Dos Santos. However, she spent only a couple of days in Sopron, because she didn’t pass the medical check-ups, so we had to replace her with Crystal Langhorne after clinching the trophy at the prestigious UMMC Cup in Ekaterinburg. At the season opener celebrations we said goodbye to our icon Kata Honti, who retired from professional basketball. After the celebration we beat BEAC by 60 points to begin the new season.
A week later DVTK posed a bigger threat to us, but they weren’t able to play a close game with us either, and we beat them easily. After that everyone was eagerly waiting for the opening night of Euroleague, where we beat the Turkish team galatasaray by 17 points. In the light of that, the loss against Győr in the next game came as a surprise, but we let it fade by beating Polkowice, Lille and Pécs. Then came a short period during which we fell out of rhythm and suffered some losses, but we managed to turn it around before Christmas by winning in Istanbul and against Polkowice. That gave us such a boost that we kept delivering the wins, and one of the greatest performance was beating Prague on their home court in front of a big crowd of fans from Sopron which put us in second place in the Euroleague group. We faced Fenerbahce in the quarter finals in possession of the home-court advantage, but fell just short in the first leg of the series. Then we went to Istanbul for the second game, which we won despite trailing by 14 at one point in the first quarter. We tied up the series, and came back to Sopron for a decisive game 3, in which we won by an amazing 21-point margin in front of a huge crowd of fans and made it to the FINAL4 and we also won the right to host the event!
After that we lost the Hungarian Cup final at home against Szekszárd, but there was not much time to be sad about it, because the league playoffs were coming up. We made it to the finals series easily, and then it was time to prepare for the Euroleague FINAL4. We played our first game against Yakin Dogu Üniversitesi, and at one point we were just shy of a twenty-point advantage against them (27th minute 51-32), but it came right down to the wire at the end. Yvonne passed the ball to Jeca who was standing in the corner and buried a huge triple with 1.2 seconds left on the game clock to secure a spot for us in the Euroleague final! In the title game we were able to surprise Ekaterinburg for a while, but in the second half they showed their worth and won the game giving us a silver medal in Euroleague.
Then came the league finals series against Szekszárd which we won in three games clinching our 12th championship title!
It was an incredible season!
2018/19
We set the bars high in the previous season but believed that all the effort and sacrifice we gave would bring another successful season. “Do not change a winning team!” - said Zoltán Török at the roster announcement in May, so we only parted ways with Danielle Page who ended her professional career. Although life had re-written our plans in the summer already. We put Jelena Milovanovic’s contract on hold due to maternity leave. To replace her we signed world class Swedish national team center Amanda Zahui. Our former youth player Kamilla Varga has also joined the roster coming back to Sopron. In August we were facing additional unforeseeable problems. We had to terminate Alaina Coates’ contract who refused to join us on time in the pre-season. A week later Tina Jovanovic fell out of the roster. Our Serbian center had surgeries done on both of her ankles. We were trying to solve this difficult situation by acquiring two-time world champion Candice Dupree. Also, we singed Croatian Iva Cuzic who had played for us before with a training contract.
At the traditional pre-season tournament in Ekaterinburg the hosts have re-claimed their trophy from us with a strong second half performance. The season opener, in which we said good-bye to Orsolya Zsovár who ended her career, was spent in a festive manner as usual. It was also announced here that the Novomatic group of companies would give their name to our arena for five more years.
We were off to a great start in the domestic league, and kept delivering win after win, even in big games. That is why the opening day of Euroleague came as a shock to us, since newcomers Flammes Carolo took advantage of our out-of-focus performance. After that we got back on winning ways by beating Szekszárd, and then Iva Cuzic was replaced by Zsófia Licskai for the same position. We were unable to cause an upset in Istanbul against Fenerbahce, but came up with a surprise victory in front of a fanatic Salamanca crowd. After that we played a close gave with Kursk, and then replaced Angela Salvadores with another Spanish player, Queralt Casas. We were the better side in the games against Hatay and Riga, but lost Zsófia fegyverneky to a foot injury on the way.
There was a change in our coaching staff during the winter break, the position of Carlos Cantero, who left due to personal reasons, was taken over by the Spanish coach José González Dantas.
We were still doing well domestically, but suffered some hurtful losses in Euroleague against Olympiacos, Fenerbahce and Salamanca. That was when we asked Kata Honti to help us out mostly in training, while Zsófi was getting back from her injury, and she said yes without hesitation.
Finally, we found our way back on the right track and surprised the entire European basketball community with a huge victory on the road against Kursk, following which we secured the first spot in the Hungarian league and beat Riga away from home to get the second place in our Euroleague group, which gave us the home-court advantage against Bourges in the quarter finals.
Three days before the Euroleague play-offs started we took the Hungarian Cup trophy back from Szekszárd using a deep rotation in the tournament.
In the series against Bourges we won the first game at home with a clutch fade-away double from mid-range by Candice, and then we left no chance for Bourges in the second leg, and made it to the FINAL4 again! After that we applied to host the event again, and won the right to do so!
Meanwhile, our team finished the regular season in the Hungarian championship with an unbeaten record, got through to the semi-finals, and the preparations for the FINAL4 were going well, too.
In the FINAL4 we played our first game against Ekaterinburg. Even though our team was playing in ecstasy in the first two quarters, and led the game 28-17 the Russians slowly took over and beat us to advance to the final, and we took part in the bronze medal game, which we lost to Prague despite giving it all.
After the FINAL4 we turned our eyes back on the Hungarian stage, and won our 13th league title with an unbeaten record, which had only happened once before.
It was another great season for us!
2019/20
We jumped into a new project after two maxed-out seasons. We wanted to our youngsters in whom we had invested a lot in recent years a bigger role. Four world class international players left – Turner, Zahui, Dupree, Casas –, while Jelena Brooks came back from maternity leave. In the guard position next to Zsófi came an experienced team player, Amrican Briann January, which also brought a change in formation. We invested in the future as well by signing 18-year-old youth national team member Alíz Varga for three years. We trusted the still young, but very talented professional Dávid Gáspár with the head coach position, with whom we had been in talks for over two years.
We started the season after a demanding preparation, where we wanted to base our team’s style of play on a tough defense. We got to a very high level in a really short time, higher than we had expected! Until the FIBA window in November we only suffered two losses. After that only our trip to Győr had some excitement, but after the break our outstanding defensive effort and the 14(!) points conceded spoke for themselves. On the international stage we began with a surprise win in France against Montpellier, after which we also managed to beat the star-studded team of Fenerbahce at home! Unfortunately, Briann January got injured in Girona, which hurt us badly against Lyon. The break came just at the right time, but when we came back on court we lost Jeca, too, whose hand got injured. This forced us to switch to a formation where multiple players had to take up positions and tasks that they had never done before, which resulted in three consecutive losses. Then we decided to strengthen our line-up and called back one of the main characters of the previous season’s success, Candice Dupree, who answered our call and joined us. We were in a very good position in the championship as well as in Euroleague after getting three wins in a row against Girona, Lyon and Gdynia, but then suddenly everything changed with the appearance of the coronavirus in Italy in February. We decided that we wouldn’t participate in the last group game against Schio, and that marked the end of our international campaign for the season, since FIBA punished us with a 20-0 loss and we didn’t even get the one point for showing up.
So all that was left for us for the rest of the season were the domestic campaigns, and first we took part in the Hungarian Cup Finals, which we managed to win by beating DVTK, TFSE-MTK and Szekszárd in the final.
In the league we couldn’t even play the last round of the regular season due to the continuing presence of the coronavirus, because the Hungarian Basketball Association has ended the season in as is condition without naming a champion in the league.
National and International results
1989/90 Hungarian Championship 8th place
1990/91 Hungarian Championship 6th place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place
1991/92 Hungarian Championship 9th place
1992/93 Hungarian Championship 1st place
1993/94 Hungarian Championship 5th place
1994/95 Hungarian Championship 5th place
1995/96 Hungarian Championship 4th place
1996/97 Hungarian Championship 6th place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place
1997/98 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Ronchetti-Cup Winner
1998/99 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place
1999/00 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2000/01 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2001/02 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2002/03 Hungarian Championship 3rd place, Euroleague best of 8
2003/04 Hungarian Championship 3rd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2004/05 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 3rd place, Euroleague best of 16
2005/06 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2006/07 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague best of 8
2007/08 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague best of 16
2008/09 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague FINAL4, 4th place
2009/10 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague Basic Season
2010/11 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague best of 16
2011/12 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague Basic Season
2012/13 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague Basic Season, Slovakian-Hungarian Championship 2nd place
2013/14 Hungarian Championship 3rd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, MEL (Middle European League) 2nd place, Euroleague best of 16
2014/15 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, EuroCup best of 8
2015/16 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague Basic Season
2016/17 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague Basic Season
2017/18 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague 2nd place
2018/2019 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague 4th place
2019/2020 Hungarian Championship -, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague best of 16
2020/2021 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague 4th place
2021/2022 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Euroleague Champions