Match of the Year – Hungary draw with Romania
Hungary and Romania shared a goalless draw in Budapest tonight which keeps both teams in contention for EURO 2016 qualification but both teams will go away feeling they could have snatched victory.
It was a fabulously intense atmosphere which welcomed the two traditional rivals onto the pitch, Hungary lining up in a 4-1-4-1 formation with Gábor Király in goal, Rolánd Juhász back from jinjury in defence and Ádám Szalai the spearhead upfront while Romania went with 4-2-3-1 as they looked to maintain top spot in the group.
Romania’s Claudiu Keșerü and Hungary captain Balázs Dzsudzsák had the first opportunities but their free-kicks both missed their targets, Keșerü’s drifting just over while Dzsudzsák’s was a couple of metres away from catching out Ciprian Tătăruşanu at his left post. Nice interplay from the visitors the saw Keșerü fashion another chance but his toe-poked shot was saved low by Király.
Romania were dominating territory with Hungary content to sit back and try to counter-attack and they did just that when Nikolic got in behind the dfence but shot over from a narrow angle. The most spectacular moment of the half was on the horizon, Szalai seeing his superb long-range volley tipped around the post by Tătăruşanu as the hosts looked to snatch the lead before half-time.
It remained goalless though, Zoltán Stieber missing an early second-half opportunity when Tătăruşanu easily saved his low shot with nearly the whole goal to aim at. In truth both sides struggled to create chances although Gabriel Torje and Keșerü nearly won it for the visitors late on, Torje in particular being thwarted by an excellent plunging dive to his right by the exceptional Király.
Hungary now travel to new group leaders Northern Ireland for their match on Monday while Romania prepare for a home assignment against Greece on the same evening.
Hungary 0-0 Románia
Hungary: Király Gábor – Fiola Attila, Juhász Roland (Guzmics Richárd, 24.), Kádár Tamás, Leandro – Stieber Zoltán (Priskin Tamás, 88.), Tőzsér Dániel, Elek Ádám, Dzsudzsák Balázs – Szalai Ádám, Nikolics Nemanja (Németh Krisztián, 70.)
Romania: Ciprian Tatarusanu – Paul Papp, Vlad Chiriches, Dragos Grigore, Razvan Rat – Andrei Prepelita, Ovidiu Hoban – Adrian Popa (Alexandriu Chipciu, 69.), Lucian Sanmartean (Constantin Budescu, 78.), Gabriel Torje (Alexandre Maxim, 88.) – Claudiu Keserü.
Photo: MTI
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters