Only the European Championship qualifiers of the English and the French were seen on average in the stadiums by more people than the home matches of the Hungarian national team in the Puskás Arena. The direct exit and the size and utilization of our national stadium flew us to the podium, in terms of the whole of Europe.
As you know, the European Championship qualifiers ended a few days ago (more precisely, their first stage, as three national teams can still reach Germany through the playoffs).
The Hungarian national team made it to the European Championships undefeated and as group leader, waiting for the draw of the final and then from the second hat.
In addition to the excellent play of the team almost throughout and the high-level work of the professional staff, the fans obviously also contributed to the great success, which is proven by the average viewership of our domestic qualifiers in addition to the always great atmosphere.
According to UEFA's official data, an average of 57,252 people attended the four matches of Marco Rossi's team in Budapest in the qualifying series, which is hardly comparable in the whole of Europe.
These numbers are also interesting from the point of view that in the case of a full house in the Puskás Arena, we usually talk about 65,000 spectators, but this figure never appears in UEFA's official data.
Domestic audience numbers for the 2023 European Championship qualifiers of the Hungarian national team:
Hungary-Bulgaria (27.03.2023) – 53,000 spectators
Hungary-Lithuania (20/06/2023) – 58,274 spectators
Hungary-Serbia (14.10.2023) – 58,215 spectators
Hungary-Montenegro (11/19/2023) – 59,600 spectators
England was able to finish ahead of us, having played all three of its matches in the 90,000-seat Wembley stadium, so it started with a "slight" advantage over its rivals, and it was even possible for the British to move one of their matches to Manchester's Old Trafford - which, by the way, is also has a larger capacity (76,212) than the Puskás Arena (67,889). The average number of spectators for the English team thus became 76,696, which is the most of all national teams playing European qualifiers.
France, which also has a stadium with a much higher than average capacity, barely overtook ours, although Didier Deschamps' team played "only" two games in the Stade De France with a capacity of more than 81,000, but its last two home matches were played by Paris Saint-Germain He took it to Parc de Princes and Nice. However, they were still ahead of the Hungarian average, although only by a few hundred points, Mbaeppe's finished with 57,645.
Source: UEFA / csakfoci.hu
Apart from these three, there were two more teams that could produce numbers over 50,000. The Poles achieved an average of 54584 despite the fact that their team did not perform very well in the qualifiers and was also forced into the playoffs. The Italians fought their way straight to the European Championship with great difficulty, but the fans enjoyed watching their suffering more than once, in four locations, in the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium in Naples, the San Siro in Milan, the San Nicola in Bari and of course the Stadio in Rome in Olimpico. The squadra azzurra ended with an average of 53868.
Many people also visited the matches of the Irish, the Scots or the Portuguese, but none of them could exceed 50,000 spectators on average. The Spaniards would probably have been able to do it, but they almost always played in smaller arenas (Málaga, Granada, Seville, Valladolid).
uefa.com/ csakfoci.hu
Featured image: András Gável
