PlugWill Hungary play its second European round of 16 in a row? Nothing is less certain, because one of the twelve host countries of the tournament will have a lot to do in a very tough Group F, which it shares with Germany, Portugal and France.
Magikus Magyarok or the “magical Magyars”. Hungarian footballers owe this flattering nickname above all to their glorious predecessors. During the 1950s, the band of Ferenc Puskas was indeed magical and would have deserved to become world champions. The 1954 World Cup final, won by the Germans, is not nicknamed for nothing “the miracle of Bern”.
June 15: Hungary – Portugal, 6 p.m., in Budapest
June 19: Hungary v France, 3 p.m., in Budapest
June 23: Germany v Hungary, 9 p.m., in Munich
The first two of each group as well as the four best thirds qualify.
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The team that should play
Péter Gulacsi – Attila Szalai, Willi Orban, Attila Fiola – Kevin Varga, Adam Nagy, David Siger, Laszlo Kleinheisler, Gergo Lovrencsics – Adam Szalai, Roland Sallai
It is Hungary’s fourth Euro; the second in a row since his return to competition, in France, in 2016, forty-four years after a last match in the finals. The Hungarians have already reached the semi-finals twice, in 1964 and 1972, at a time when the final tournament brought together only four teams. In 2016, they created a surprise by beating Portugal at the top of their group, before falling to the eighth against Belgium (4-0).
The coach: Marco Rossi
Perhaps one of the lesser known Euro coaches. If this Italian has a famous surname in transalpine football, his career as a player and then as a coach was rather confidential. At 56, after starting in clubs in lower Italian divisions, Rossi made a name for himself in Hungary by coaching the Budapest club Honvéd (from 2012 to 2014 and from 2015 to 2017). An interim in the Slovakian championship, and here is this Piedmontese propelled coach of Hungary on June 19, 2018. A selection that succeeds him since he manages to qualify for his second Euro in a row, eliminating Iceland during the a very close play-off (2-1). A relief for a country which hosts matches of the competition this year.
We assume the tricolor bias since if Loïc Nego is not the most talented of Hungarian players, nor an indisputable holder, this Frenchman has managed to make his hole in Magyar football. His equalization at 88e minute of the play-off against the Icelanders was decisive for the qualification of his adopted country, before the young prodigy Dominik Szoboszlai – forfeit for the Euro – four minutes later offered the victory to his family.
Trained in Nantes, this Parisian traveled around before settling in Hungary: Rome (without ever playing), Standard de Liège, then Ujpest Football Club in Budapest. Since 2015, he has played in one of the country’s major clubs: MOL Fehérvar Football Club, formerly Videoton FC. This former French international in the youth categories was selected for the first time in the Hungarian team on October 8, 2020.
VSit happened at the Euro
It took nothing for Hungary to permanently change the face of Euro 2016. In the group stage, in Décines (Rhône), the Hungarians led three times in score against the future champion of Europe, Portugal of Cristiano Ronaldo, then in great danger of elimination. A priori unbalanced, this meeting was one of the most exciting of the first round. Double author (50e and 62e), “CR7”, aka Ronaldo, saved his team. Without him, Portugal would not have crossed the Hungarian obstacle and France would perhaps have one more international title (the French lost 1-0 in the final against the Portuguese).
In 1956, a year before the countries of Western Europe began building Europe with the Treaty of Rome, Hungary rose up against its communist regime. The insurgency begins in Budapest on October 23 and will extend across the country until November 10. It is considered the first attempt at an anti-totalitarian revolution. But the USSR intervened to suppress it by force. Result: 2,500 dead and more than 13,000 wounded on the Hungarian side.
Hungary waited for the fall of the Wall to be able to apply for Eurovision. After a failure in the qualifiers in 1993, she made her debut in 1994 with the singer Friderika and her very “Rousseauist” title: Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet? (“To whom can I confess my sins?”). To date, this is Hungary’s best performance, ranked 4the. In 2020, the country withdrew from the competition on the decision of its government, a source of the British newspaper Tea Guardian evoked “A competition deemed too gay …”
The “goulash” (gulyasleves in Hungarian) is a must in Hungarian gastronomy. It contains meat, peppers, onions, potatoes and paprika, one of the treasures of Hungarian cuisine. If you are thirsty we can only recommend an excellent Tokay. This sweet white wine is a real national pride, to the point of being mentioned in the Hungarian anthem:
“You made waves, like
Seas, ears in our plains,
And you only allowed nectar
From tokay our cups are full. “
