Hungary Men to play important match on same day as World Cup kick-off

Marco Rossi’s men’s national team will play its last home match of the year on 20 November against Greece in the Puskás Arena, three days after travelling to Luxembourg for another friendly match.

The Hungarian national team will close the year of 2022 against teams in the C league of the Nations League. Our first opponent, Luxembourg, are currently second in their group behind Turkey, ahead of the Faroe Islands and Lithuania. Several footballers from the Luxembourg national team play in the German Bundesliga, but there are also players from Spartak Moscow and the Dutch league too.

The last time the two countries played was on November 2017, also in Luxembourg. It wasn’t a good day for us, a 2-1 loss with Nemanja Nikolic scoring our only goal. From the team at that time, which was managed by Zoltán Szélesi as interim head coach, today only Ádám Nagy and Roland Sallai are still in the setup. Luc Holtz, Luxembourg’s head coach, has been in charge since August 2010 and he is due to lead his team in their 12th match against Hungary, the current record standing at 10 wins for Hungary until that most recent encounter.

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The last time we faced Greece was four years ago, when they were one of our ’C’ League group opponents in the first edition of the Nations League. By that time in autumn 2018, Marco Rossi was already in charge of the national team which won 2-1 at home with goals from Roland Sallai and László Kleinheisler, a month before losing 1-0 in Greece in October. Despite the defeat, Rossi was for a long time of the opinion that that latter match was the best his team had played under him. It is interesting to note that Hungary and Greece were drawn in the same group in the qualifiers for both the 2008 and 2016 European Championships.

Greece currently top their group in League ‘C’ of the Nations League, with two matches to go before the end of the initial stages, a six-point lead meaning they are comfortably ahead in a group which also includes Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Cyprus. Most of their players play in the English, German, Dutch, Turkish and Greek leagues, which means it will be a tough task for Hungary to improve their record against them, one which currently stands at five wins and six draws from 21 matches.

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“Our team is able to spend such little time together each yeat, since the club calendar is so busy both at domestically and in European competition, so every extra day spent together is of particular importance. From this point of view, the unity in November will also be important, and it will provide an excellent opportunity to take a look at those young players who have been knocking on the door of the full men’s team for some time – if they continue to work and perform properly, they can soon be regular members of the squad. We want to see what they are capable of and where they are internationally when playing against other adult national teams”, Marco Rossi told mlsz.hu.

Thursday 17 November, 2022

Luxembourg v Hungary in the Stade de Luxembourg

Sunday 20 November, 2022

Hungary v Greece in the Puskás Arena

The match on 20 November coincides with the first day of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It is permissable to organise friendly matches on the day of the opening match of the World Cup because FIFA only recently brought the first match of the World Cup forward one day earlier.

Source: en.mlsz.hu