The Hungarian national football team came up with a much better mentality and game against the host Germans than on Saturday, but the bravura score was still not possible in Stuttgart.
Julian Nagelsmann's national team took the lead in the first half with an extremely opinionated goal, and in the second half, Ilkay Gündogan's goal closed the substantial part of the battle that had brought enjoyable changes of blades. This put our team in an extremely difficult situation, while the Germans practically advanced to the top sixteen.
The German collective social consciousness refers to the 2006 World Cup as the great summer football festival. Their domestic tournament, before which their national team was last described in such a way - then the Nationalelf marched to the semi-finals and forced the eventual winners, the Italians, to a 120-minute battle for the final.
Even if it is not a similarly wide-ranging experience back home, when talking to the Hungarian fans, many people recalled our European Championship match in Munich three years ago against the current director. Then, our team took the lead twice, "thanks" to Leon Goretzka's rebounding shot in the 84th minute, and ended up 2-2. That one point was not enough to advance. On the other hand, for today's date, we could go as if a similar result would mean staying alive - and that the Dominiques of Szoboszlai can know their fate in our own hands before the last round in the group stage. I'm not kidding, it didn't work...
The 2021 meeting was also discussed at Marco Rossi's press conference on Tuesday, but our national team captain couldn't help emphasizing that you can't live on the past: that German national team was completely different from the current one. However, from one point of view, our last three games against Nationalelf, undefeated, can be significant: that we know that we have the ability to break the odds and crush them under their noses. The self-confidence of the Germans could not be complained about, in the opening match they broke several records and beat Scotland 5-1, while we lost 3-1 to Switzerland with a disappointing first half performance a day later. Julian Nagelsmann said on Tuesday that, in his opinion, there is no big difference between the strength of the Scottish and Hungarian national teams, whether he wanted to flatter Scotland or degraded ours, that's a good question. We could only hope, if it was the latter, that we would manage to disprove the thoughts about us of the youngest national team captain in European Championship history.
Rossi promised that we will not put together such a helpless first half as on Saturday. And the promise was confirmed in barely 20 seconds, after winning the ball Barnabás Varga slipped in the front of the penalty area, and Roland Sallai surprised Joshua Kimmich with his aggressiveness and was already in a shooting position against Manuel Neuer at the left corner of the penalty area. However, the opportunity was missed...
In the sequel, you had the same feeling, you managed to surprise the Germans. OK, the home team had more of the ball, but it was extremely fruitless service, mostly in their own half. The Germans watched the first ten minutes in silence, while we threatened from two corners, but Bolla Bendegúz's bouncing shot missed the goal by a long way.
Turning to the 11th minute, we saw the Germans' first serious opportunity, Kai Havertz beat Willi Orbán on the right side of the penalty area - it was a bit like the defender and the goalkeeper did not understand each other - but Péter Gulácsi made a tremendous effort to get in the shot coming from barely six meters. And after the corner kick, Bolla flashed again, this time instead of the opponent's goal, at our own, at the tip of the fifth, he headed Robert Andrich's shot through.
After a quarter of an hour, the Nationalelf visibly shook off their surprise, increasing the pressure on the Hungarian goal. Jamal Musiala, Havertz and Ilkay Gündogan triangulated our defense in one touch, but fortunately for us, the Turkish-German team captain could not take the ball briefly in the front of the five and a half.
In the 22nd minute, the Germans took the lead, Musiala teased Gündogan on the offside, who overtook Orbán nicely in the front of the five-and-a-half, and then his leg got tangled with the German captain's, causing him to fall. Gündogan recovered the ball after the touch of the projecting Gulácsi, passed it to Musiala, and the latter cut the ball under the crossbar next to Attila Fiola, who returned to the goal line. The video referee looked back at the incident, then, to a huge surprise, but to the great joy of the Germans, he let the goal stand (1-0).
Let's just say that in the opposite case, if such a contact between a defender and an attacker occurs to the detriment of the attacker, 99 percent of the judgment is a penalty - here the Dutchman did not judge the same.
Not long after, the scene, from a very close camera position, was shown on the giant projector of the StuttgartArena, exploding a huge concert of whistles from the Hungarian speakers, and then the
UEFA mafia! UEFA mafia! - also chanting.
We could have answered quickly, Szoboszlai was cut down at the left end of the penalty area. The free kick was taken by the victim, and Neuer knocked it out of the top right with a huge throw - unfortunately for us. However, those certain spiders would have been in serious danger...
In the 28th minute, Szoboszlai was threatened again, Milos Kerkez crossed from the left, but not to the center, rather smartly to the line of the penalty area, and our team captain took it, and after a rebound, he shot from 12 meters, but Jonathan Tah blocked it. Tellingly, after 30 minutes the German possession superiority was still significant, alongside the name of the Hungarian team there were more attempts to score goals, and minimally better xG as well. Our situation quality index was 0.81, while the Germans' was 0.79.
The start of the half brought constant German pressure and one or two Hungarian counterattacks that were suppressed early on - without a jump created in regular conditions. Although there is still a more serious blade change left at the end. First, Musiala's shot from 18 meters into the left side net confused about 20-25 thousand Germans enough to call for another goal. Then in the encore, after Bolla's slide and Neuer's feat, Sallai headed a goal from us from the rebound - for a few moments, 12-15 thousand Hungarians burst into jubilation, unfortunately for no reason.
We started the second half without substitutions, the first 15 minutes of which did not bring any major changes in the picture of the game. The home team continued to play football with a significant possession advantage of 63-65 percent, but could not create a roaring situation from this. Orbán and Bolla repeatedly showed bravura defense, and Varga B. also noticeably stepped back to defend more than he did against Switzerland. In the 55th minute, another Gulács save was still needed, Gündogan turned Dárdai on the left side of our defense, and after his pass, he managed to punch the ball right in front of Kroos - his 17-meter, bouncing shot was saved by the goalkeeper of the Hungarian national team of Leipzig. .
But there was still a danger in us, in the 60th minute, for example, Sallai started from a good trick on the left wing, and after his pass, Varga jumped over Tah, who was in trouble with Bayern Munich, but at the same time he nodded half a meter near the top right.
It almost seemed that our wish would come true, that we could go into an open game and thus have a realistic chance to score points in the final game, but in the 67th minute, the white jerseys doubled their advantage. Maximilian Mittelstädt was terribly empty at the left end of the penalty area, received the ball from Musiala, and then set it up for Gündogan, who arrived at the penalty spot, who placed a left-footed shot into the bottom left corner. You could feel the Germans' joy at the goal, how relieved they were that they scored the second goal of the match (2-0) in a close-fought battle.
The hair thus took a completely different direction, as András Schäfer talked about the other day, even in the hope of beautification, we had to take a lot more risks than we could do in a healthy case. We switched to a two-center game, which didn't really work in the first round either, then for Switzerland, now for Germany, it meant free counterplay and easy passage through our midfield for the last 15-20 minutes. The fire of battle until then went out bit by bit, the endgame was about easy German passing and some light-hearted shooting attempts that regularly avoided our goal. And Nagelsmann was able to hand out bonus minutes to Chris Führich and Deniz Undav, members of the Stuttgart squad on the home field.
It says everything about our luck that after Neuer's poor performance and dropped ball, Orbán's shot from seven meters was still able to be blocked by Rüdiger and Kimmich from the goal line. Then Tah's handling inside the penalty area also went unpunished, so the beautification didn't work out either. However, based on several decisive offensive statistics, the number of big chances (four for us, three for the Germans) and xG (1.65 for the Germans, 1.52 for the Hungarians), it could have been much more for us in this fight.
The Hungarian national team lost to the Germans for the first time since the 1954 World Cup final in Bern (2:3). In the three stakes matches of the past seventy years, we had two draws and one win against Germany and the legal predecessor of Germany before today...
Our team will end the group stage against Scotland on Sunday. What other goals the Szoboszlais may have in front of them depends to a large extent on the group's other match today, the Scottish-Swiss clash, as well as the results of the other quartets. There is no longer a chance for the four points, which means almost certain progress, but they can get by with three - in the event of a round-robin, they will not necessarily be among the best third in the group, but this is far from dependent only on the Hungarian national team.
The Germans - if not mathematically yet - practically advanced to the knockout stage after two games.
European Football Championship 2024, group stage
- turn
Germany–Hungary 2–0 (1–0)
Stuttgart, StuttgartArena, 54,000 spectators.
Manager: Danny Makkelie (Dutch) GERMANY: Neuer - Kimmich, Tah, Rüdiger, Mittelstadt - Andrich (Can, 72), Kroos - Musiala (Führich, 72), Gündogan (Undav, 84), Wirtz (L. Sané , 58.) – Havertz (Füllkrug, 58.).
National captain: Julian Nagelsmann HUNGARY: Gulácsi – Fiola, Orbán W., Dárdai M. – Bolla B. (Ádám M., 75), Á Nagy.
(Kleinheisler, 64), Schäfer, Kerkez (Nagy Zs., 75) – Szoboszlai, Sallai (Csoboth, 87) – B. Varga (Gazdag, 87) Association captain: Marco Rossi Scorer: Musiala (22) , Gundogan (67.)
21.00, Cologne: Scotland-Switzerland
Group standings: 1. Germany 6 points (7–1), 2. Switzerland 3 (3–1, 1 game), 3. Hungary 0 (1–5), 4. Scotland 0 (1–5, 1 game) .
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June 23, 21.00, Frankfurt: Switzerland-Germany
June 23, 9 p.m., Stuttgart: Scotland-Hungary
It happened in round 1
Hungary–Switzerland 1–3 (0–2)
Germany-Scotland 5-1 (3-0)
Featured image: Barnabás Varga (b) and Germany's Antonio Rüdiger played in the 2nd round of the European Football Championship Group A between Germany and Hungary in the MHP Arena in Stuttgart on June 19, 2024.
MTI/Tibor Illyés
