Budapest’s already been here, waiting for the Novi Sad Dukes at their home field in a big game. Naturally, this is no longer a battle of undefeated teams during the regular season – it’s now even more significant with the finals on the line.

The first game was tick for tack in the first half, with Dukes leading the way and finishing five points up before Budapest showed its strength in the second half.

“It will definitely be much harder this time, and not only because the absence of Vasya. We still have a few other guys missing compared to our roster in the spring, and we did not play that good in the last few games, so we’ll have to be much better to reach the final”, says Péter Cseperkáló.

Though the offense played their part, behind Cseperkáló and especially running back István Demeter, who played his best game of the season that time, the main difference in the second half came on defense. Čaba Juhas of Dukes passed for two and was involved on four touchdowns, but in the second he passed three times to the Wolves’ defensive players as Dukes’ offense was scoreless for the final 24 minutes.

With Juhas still not completely recovered, the defense could play a big part again, and it might just have to. While the return of Vasyl Yordan hasn’t been ruled out, they will most likely go with Attila Lendvai at quarterback for the third time. He played his part for the win in both games that he started, but the question remains whether he can truly supplant Yordan.

The Ukranian, while not having the stats of some other quarterbacks in the league, was efficient to say the least, taking advantage of the fact that the Wolves are the team that runs the most in the league.

And so we return to Cseperkáló; to fully understand how dominant he’s been, one needs only a comparison to his teammate Demeter, the league’s third rusher. Impressive in his own right, Demeter carried the ball one time less than number 49 for 415 yards less.

The Wolves were optimistic in both competitions they played in this year, reaching highs in beating the Vienna Vikings II in Austrian Division I and going 4-0 in SELAF. The Austrian playoffs ended in disappointment though, and they failed to go undefeated in seven regular season games. Probably not a big deal – if they win on Saturday.

“We don’t want to end up the SELAF season as we did in the Austrian league, so right now this game is the most important and the hardest game of the Budapest Wolves ever!”

In the end, Vasyl or no Vasyl, the Wolves will be looking to ride both Cseperkáló and Demeter to a win Saturday, at BVCS stadium.