Preparations start for the men's U17 World Cup

Our men's U17 national team secured fifth place at the UEFA U17 European Championship in Ireland in May and with it, qualification for the U17 World Cup starting in Brazil in late October. The team is now preparing for this major tournament as a U18 national team after the summer change of age groups (while a new U17 national squad, all born in 2003, will battle in autumn to reach next spring's U17 European Championship under Antal Németh), The group's first gathering since the European Championship in Ireland was held from last Sunday to Wednesday and was led by a backroom team headed by head coach Sándor Preisinger. Nigeria, Ecuador and Australia will be our group-stage opponents in Brazil.

Having said this, the training camp featured only five of the squad who participated in Ireland, the new squad members there to stake their claim for selection for the World Cup. At the end of the four-day camp, a training match against Hungarian third-division team III. kerület.

"Only a few players from the Euros were able to be here this time, so this was a good opportunity to see how the players who missed the European Championship are progressing, even though we have been keeping track of their performances for a long time", Preisinger told mlsz.hu. "It seems that most of them have spent some part of the summer relaxing and are still far from their peak form, but I found the four days spent together useful. I saw four or five football players who seemed to be serious contenders to join the squad and, based on their performances, have a very good chance of participating in the World Cup. It is also a warning to squad members from the U17 Euros in Ireland that they cannot sit back and relax because they could lose their place in the national squad at any time".

The national team will next next meet on 18th August when they will travel to the Vaclav Jezek memorial tournament in Czech Republic for three warm-up matches.

The squad for this week's training camp at Telki:

Goalkeepers:

Gábor Megyeri (Bp. Honvéd)
Dániel Winter (MTK)
 
Defenders:
 
Kevin Kállai (Illés Academy)
Patrick Iyinbor (FTC)
Zoltán Dávid (Békéscsaba)
Donát Orosz (DVTK)
Attila Szabados (Győri ETO)
Américo Pereira (Győri ETO)
Alex Szabó (Bp. Honvéd)
Ádám Csányi (Bp. Honvéd)
 
Midfielders:
 
Mihály Kata (MTK Budapest)
Bálint Katona (FTC)
Ákos Bertalan Kapornai (Vasas)
Gábor Buna (Bp. Honvéd)
Milán Vitalis (Győri ETO)
Dominik Kovács (Bp. Honvéd)

Forwards:

Milán László Tóth (Illés Academy)
Ákos Zuigeber (MTK Budapest)
Péter Hanzli (Phoenix-Gold)
Roland Hajdú (FTC)
Alex Burzi (FTC)
Balázs Kesző Farkas (Győri ETO)