Men's Under-17s: Hungary pay penalty against Belgium

With both Hungary and opponents Belgium having won their opening two fixtures against Norway and Bosnia, qualification for the European Under-17 Championship had already been secured when the teams met at Telki on Monday, the only question remaining being which team would win the group, and which would finish as runners-up.

Head coach Sándor Preisinger made a number of changes to the side which beat Bosnia on Friday, Marcell Vaits starting in goal, Zétény Hosszú starting at left-back and Dávid Zoltán in the centre of a 5-man defence, András Németh on the left wing, and Szabolcs Szalay at centre-forward.

Hungary began well, taking the lead in the 11th minute as Szalay headed home Márk Kosznovszky’s cross from the right, and the forward came close to a second some five minutes later as he sprang the offside trap, only to be denied by a great saving tackle by Jeremy Landu.

Belgium were dominating the midfield, and when they were awarded a penalty in the 29th minute – Milán Horváth harshly being adjudged to have fouled Thibo Baeten in the box – Jeremy Doku made no mistake as he levelled the scores. By half-time they were ahead, pacy winger Franck Idumbo-Mazumbo teeing up Landu, whose looping shot from 14 yards found the corner of the net.

Hungary made two changes at half-time, Krisztián Hegyi coming on in goal, and Benedek Kalmár replacing Szalay, but any hopes they had of getting back into the match were scuppered within three minutes as Ameen Al Dakhil found Baeten in space on the edge of the six-yard box, the big number 20 firing home with ease.

The match was all but over as a contest by the 56th minute, Idumbo-Mazumbo being caught by Horváth in box, and a second penalty awarded to the Belgians. Again, Doku stepped up, and again he converted his spot-kick to make it 4-1 to Belgium.

Belgium continued to dominate but without adding to their goals tally, and Hungary did score a consolation goal late on, Landu fouling Hosszú in the box, and although Kalmár’s penalty was parried by Senne Lammens in the Belgian goal, he retained composure to fire home the rebound and set the final score of 4-2.

“I’ve got nothing but good words for my players, as they carried out the tactics that I asked them too. We had a few dangerous attacks and succeeded in scoring. Unfortunately, mistakes crept into our game, and our opponents possessed a couple of unbelievably dynamic forwards with whom we struggled to cope. We need to learn from this match, because at the European Championships all the teams will be of a similar level to Belgium, and we’d like to compete,” said Sándor Preisinger after the match.

Hungary 2-4 Belgium (1-2)

Goalscorers: HUN: Szalay (11’), Kalmár (85’); BEL: Doku (29’ pen, 56’ pen), Landu (45’), Baeten (48’)

Hungary: Marcell Vaits (Krisztián Hegyi, 46’) – Gábor Buna, Botond Balogh, Zoltán Dávid, Milán Horváth, Zétény Hosszú – Ákos Zuigeber (Borisz Tóth, 56’), Márk Kosznovszky (Sámuel Major, 70’), Patrik Posztobányi (György Komáromi, 56’), András Németh – Szabolcs Szalay (Benedek Kalmár, 46’)