Hungary to take on Sweden and Azerbaijan in June

Hungary’s men’s national team will play its first fixture of summer 2025 against Sweden in the Puskás Arena in Budapest on 6th June. The Scandinavian country is currently ranked three places above Hungary, in 27th in the FIFA world rankings, so it is a somewhat misleading fact that, in contrast to Hungary, Sweden didn’t qualify for last year's European Championship but is a team of Division B of the UEFA Nations League, after having won their group they won ahead of Slovakia, Estonia and Azerbaijan.

Hungary and Sweden have so far faced each other 45 times, of which the former has won 18, lost 17 and drawn 10. The two teams met most often in the early part of the current century, when the two were qualifying group rivals for the 2004 and 2012 UEFA European Championship and the 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cup, but most recently contested a friendly match on 15 November 2016 in the Groupama Arena.

This fixture was the farewell match for Hungarian international stalwarts Roland Juhász and Gábor Király, which the visitors won 2-0. Only four members of the current national setup were in then-head coach Bernd Storck’s squad that day, Attila Fiola as a starter and Endre Botka as a substitute, while Dénes Dibusz and Ádám Nagy didn’t make it onto the pitch in Hungary’s last match of 2016.

Hungary’s second international fixture this coming June will see Marco Rossi’s squad meet Azerbaijan, a nation known to play a similar style of football to Hungary’s World Cup qualification rivals Armenia, on 10th June 2025. The Azerbaijani national team currently lies 117th in the FIFA world rankings, while Armenia which plays in a similar style is in the 100th position. Hungary have faced Azerbaijan seven times and won all seven of those fixtures, scoring a total of 19 goals and conceding only two. The last match between the two came during the Euro 2020 qualifiers when Willi Orbán scored twice in the away fixture, a feat previously only achieved against this opponent by Elek Nyilas in 1996.

"We’ve chosen these two teams because we want to play against opponents in matches which will be useful preparation for the World Cup qualifiers," head coach Marco Rossi explained. "I think everyone knows that Sweden are a very good team. They have just been promoted to Division B of the Nations League and have several outstanding players who are well-known at international level. They switch flexibly between several tactical formations, but usually play with three defenders, which is useful for us in terms of preparation to face Republic of Ireland and Armenia, not to mention Portugal, who also line up in this formation. Azerbaijan are not as strong as Sweden, but they play in a similar style to Armenia and have a similar level of technical knowledge to Azerbaijan.”

These two friendly fixtures in June complete Hungary’s 2025 schedule, three matches of which will help members of Hungary’s official international supporters’ club collect points, something which will also be achievable by attending this year’s MOL Hungarian Cup final. Details of this are available in Hungarian via the following link.

Hungary Men’s 2025 fixture schedule:
20th March: Turkey v Hungary (Nations League relegation/promotion play-off 1st leg)
23rd March: Hungary v Turkey (Nations League relegation/promotion play-off 2nd leg)
6th June: Hungary v Sweden (friendly match)
10th June 10: Azerbaijan v Hungary (friendly match)
6th September: Republic of Ireland v Hungary (World Cup qualifier)
9th September: Hungary v Portugal/Denmark (World Cup qualifier)
11th October: Hungary v Armenia (World Cup qualifier)
14th October: Portugal/Denmark v Hungary (World Cup qualifier)
13th November: Armenia v Hungary (World Cup qualifier)
16th November: Hungary v Republic of Ireland (World Cup qualifier)