Hungary Women’s U19s on brink of qualification after fine win over Serbia

Edina Farádi-Szabó scored the vital goal which gave Hungary Women’s Under 19 team a crucial single-goal victory over Serbia yesterday and left Sándor Turtóczki’s team needing only to match Serbia’s result in the final group fixtures on Sunday in order to reach the Elite round of the 2016 European Championship.

Turtóczki had made several changes to the team that performed so valiantly in the narrow defeat to Germany on matchday 1 but it made no difference to the team’s defiance as they repelled everything Serbia could throw at them. This was a more open game than that defeat though and Hungary had chances of their own, most notably through the outstanding footballer on the pitch Hungarian captain Zsanette Kaján, but she couldn’t quite convert any of them.

Instead the goalscoring burden fell to Farádi-Szabó who scored the game’s only goal with a spectacular long-range strike in the 40th minute of the first half. Despite chances for both sides, the scoreline stayed the same and means that Hungary now only need to beat group minnows Kazakhstan, who lost 7-0 to Germany yesterday in the other match, on Sunday or match Serbia’s result in order to qualify for next spring’s Elite round which will determine who qualifies for the 2016 European Championship tournament proper.

Sándor Turtóczki, Hungary head coach:

“We knew only a victory would be a good result against Serbia but I wasn’t sure after the exertions against Germany whether we could recover within two days having run so much against one of the best national teams in the world. Unfortunately we weren’t at our freshest and this affected our game. We had our difficulties in the first half an hour but after that we improved and in the second period we created several good chances to score the second goal which would have decided the contest. We tired towards the end but in the end we emerged victorious against a good opponent. We have one match left which we must take very seriously but I feel that mentally and tactically our team is strong enough that it won’t let qualification slip through its hands.”

Hungary-Serbia 1-0 (1-0)

Hungary: Schildkraut Fruzsina – Nagypál Fatima, Vicai Katalin, Turányi Lilla, Szabó Dorottya- Grúber Brigitta, Farádi-Szabó Edina – Szakonyi Emese (Krascsenics Petra, 81.), Kocsán Petra (Csányi Diána, 73.), Magyarics Zoé (Gelb Mónika, 29.) – Kaján Zsanett

Source: http://en.mlsz.hu/