Hungary to face Turkey in Nations League play-offs

Hungary finished third in their Nations League group behind two of the world's top teams, Germany and the Netherlands, and ahead of Bosnia, meaning that Rossi's team face one of the runners-up in League B for the right to be in Division A during the next edition of the Nations League.

The play-off pairings were drawn on Friday in Nyon, Hungary drawing Turkey as opponents from League B. The first leg of the tie will be played away in Turkey on 20th March before the second leg takes place in the Puskás Arena on 23rd March 2025.

The Turkish national team, led by former Italy international striker Vincenzo Montella, is no stranger to Hungary in recent times, the two teams having met in a friendly match in March which Hungary won 1–0 in the Puskás Arena. Before that, the two teams played each other in the Nations League in autumn 2020, when Hungary won 1–0 away, courtesy of Dominik Szoboszlai's superb free-kick, and 2–0 at home.

"Honestly, there was only one team out of the four that I wanted to avoid, and that was Turkey," Marco Rossi told mlsz.hu after the draw. "Not because the other potential opponents are any weaker, but because we know Turkey well and I know how good their team is, especially away from home, so we have a very tough tie ahead of us. This year, we've already met in a friendly match and in the Nations League we played each other four years ago. Those two Nations League games were a long time ago, so we can't draw any particular conclusions from them, but this year, we saw that they've got a lot of very talented young players and that they're very strong as a team and individually. For us, the key is to get the players in good shape for the games in March, for everyone to play for their clubs and for us to go into the two meetings with enough confidence. We're not favourites in this tie, but neither are Turkey, so I think there's a 50-50 chance of prevailing after the two clashes."