united had bowed out of the league cup and the fa cup at an early stage which had left them relatively free to carry on a twin assault on the ınter-cities fairs cup and more importantly the football league title. their league challenge was looking to be on course and they were hoping to maintain their european challenge, but knew from past experience that the hungarian ujpest dozsa were going to offer them a stiff challenge. united were still quietly confident as they held a good record against ujpest having beaten them 4-1 in their previous encounter 1966 at the same stage of the same competition. ujpest still had the nucleus of the team which played so well against united back in 1966, laszlo fazekas, janos gorocs, the incomparable ferenc bene, antal dunai and sandor zambo were all still in their prime. but almost three years to the day after that impressive united performance the magyars got their revenge as they turned the tables in a stunning display and thoroughly deserved their 1-0 victory.
paul madeley had recovered from injury and duly took the place of the suspended terry cooper at left back. united playing in blue with ujpest in their normal white, began well with eddie gray pulling a left foot shot wide, paul madeley heading against the bar and rod belfitt, who was preferred to peter lorimer, shooting over the bar after antal szentimihalyi did well to parry a hard shot from johnny giles. however, it was not all one-way traffic and jack charlton was forced to head against his own crossbar and paul madeley had to head over to relieve the pressure in the same attack.
on the night the hungarians were the better team and it came as no surprise when antal dunai won the tie for them with a seventy-first minute goal much to the ujpest player’s delight but the game really hinged on two key incidents. ten minutes into the second half with the score still 0-0 an eddie gray cross was handled by defender erno nosko but antal szentimihalyi, ujpest’s six foot two inch goalkeeper dived low to his right to keep out johnny giles’ penalty kick. ıt was a rare miss by the normally deadly ırishman and united were to pay a high price as the winner came after seventy-two minutes when the ever-dangerous ferenc bene fed a short pass to albert dunai, who hooked a powerful twenty-five yard shot into gary sprake’s right hand corner of the net. ujpest were lightning quick on the break and received a standing ovation from the crowd at the final whistle from an appreciative elland road crowd.
“they are an excellent side, good all-round and very fast on the break from defence to attack,” said united manager don revie, who now had to take his side to hungary for their forty-seventh european match and for the first time they would be going into the away leg in arrears.
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