Balogh returns to Hungary men's squad for October double-header

Marco Rossi has announced a 27-man squad for the latest two World Cup qualifying fixtures, a figure which covers for the absence of suspended due Roland Sallai and Barnabás Varga in the first match.

"There are no significant changes [to the squad], in part due to no one new catching my attention in the last three weeks," Rossi told mlsz.hu when discussing the principles of selection. "Botond Balogh has taken Gábor Szalai’s place, because he's playing regularly again and can also be used in the middle of defence, so now we have two left-footed central defenders. The other player from the previous squad left out is Bence Dárdai, because he hasn’t played a single minute for his club since the last time we played together. Furthermore, I was satisfied with the team’s performance in September, so there was no real reason for me to make changes. We have two players missing upfront for the first match, so my task is to find a solution to this situation and get the three points against Armenia".

Rossi's team will host Armenia at the Puskás Aréna on 11th October, before travelling to take on Portugal in Lisbon three days later. "We've seen that the Armenians are weaker than us on paper and we've known this since the draw, but despite this, we won't underestimate them, since they showed against Republic of Ireland how dangerous they can be," Rossi continued. "They have three or four particularly good players, but even so, of course, our aim is to win against them. Varga and Sallai will be back in Portugal, so we'd like to put in a similar performance against them as we did in the Puskás Aréna a few weeks ago, with the difference that the result should be more in our favour. Having said this, we know what it means when Portugal is our opponent and we know how strong they are."

Hungary's national squad members will gather in Telki to begin their preparations on Monday 6th October.

Hungarian men's national squad:

Goalkeepers:
Dénes Dibusz (Ferencváros)
Péter Szappanos (Puskás Akadémia)
Balázs Tóth (Blackburn Rovers)

Defenders:
Botond Balogh (Kocaelispor)
Márton Dárdai (Hertha BSC)
Milos Kerkez (Liverpool)
Attila Mocsi (Rizespor)
Loic Nego (Le Havre)
Willi Orbán (RB Leipzig)
Attila Osváth (Paks)
Attila Szalai (Kasimpasa)

Midfielders:
Bendegúz Bolla (Rapid Wien)
Áron Csongvai (AIK)
Zsolt Nagy (Puskás Akadémia)
Bence Ötvös (Ferencváros)
András Schäfer (Union Berlin)
Callum Styles (West Bromwich Albion)
Dominik Szoboszlai (Liverpool)
Alex Tóth (Ferencváros)
Milan Vitalis (ETO FC Győr)

Forwards:
Zsombor Gruber (Ferencváros)
Dániel Lukács (Puskás Académia) Rajmund Molnár (Pogon Szczecin)
Roland Sallai (Galatasaray)
Barna Tóth (Paks)
Barnabás Varga (Ferencváros)