Under 21s impress before letting three-goal lead slip

Gera's team, joint hosts of next year's UEFA U21 European Championship, took to the pitch again in an international match for the first time in almost ten months, the opponent their co-hosts of next year's continental tournament, Slovenia. Hungary were missing several key players from their pre-match training camp, including Attila Szalai, Adrián Szőke and András Schäfer, who had all been called up to the full national squad.

The U21 squad was therefore 'reinvigorated', with the call-ups of Sándor Hidi, born in 2001; Balogh Botond, born in 2002, and three players born in 2000 (typically in the current U21 age group, the players were born in 1998 and 1999).

Hungary had already met Slovenia in October last year, losing 1-0 away from home to a goal from the penalty spot. Once again, Slovenia started with five defenders and tried to use that stable foundation to break up the home team's attacks. This they failed to do though, conceding a penalty during the first real attack of the match which Bence Bíró confidently dispatched (1-0). Szabolcs Schön and then Szabolcs Mezei both went close in the following minutes but both times the ball struck the crossbar before Hungary did manage to double their advantage in the 34th minute, Martin Palincsár crossing from the right byline for the incoming Bence Bíró to place the ball from the left corner of five-metre box into the right side of the goal (2-0).

In contrast, Slovenia were unable to create anything before half-time, a pattern which didn't change early in the second half when Hungary went further ahead Szabolcs Schön crossing the ball into the middle after a defensive mistake and the incoming Bence Bíró Bence shooting into an empty goal from close range (3-0).

After the goal, Slovenia realised they had nothing to lose and resolved to exert as much attacking pressure as they could, a wise ploy given that Hungary seemed to drop their tempo a little and this may have been the reason for the visiotrs being able to score three times between the 69th and 79th minutes. The first came from a penalty by Zan Medved (3-1), before Tomi Horvát's accurate cross-shot led to the ball finding its way into the goal (3-2). In the 79th minute, a long ball gave Aljosa Matko the chance to dart between defenders and calmly place the ball in the bottom-left corner of the net (3-3). Medved was shown a red card in the 84th minute but Hungary were unable to force a winning goal despite playeing with a man advantage in the last few minutes.

"I feel sorry for the boys because they would have deserved the victory with their performance in the first sixty minutes", Zoltán Gera said after the match. "In that period of play, we executed our plans, and this was evidenced by the developing scoreline. However, after the first Slovenia goal, our game fell apart and I think there were both mental and physical reasons for this. It's annoying that we didn't manage to win from a three-goal advantage so we have to learn from the mistakes we have made, but we can and must build on the performance of the first hour".

Hungary 3-3 Slovenia (HT: 2-0)
Hungary: Patjén Demjén - Kristóf Hinora, Botond Balogh, Zsombor Nagy, Bence Gergényi - Sándor Hidi - Regő Szánthó (András Németh, 78.), Szabolcs Mezei, Martin Palincsár (Bence Kiss, 81.), Szabolcs Schön - Bence Bíró.