The Hungarian national football team defeated visiting Estonia 1-0 in a friendly match on Thursday, the 50th meeting with national team captain Marco Rossi.
The Hungarian national team was on the offensive from the first minute, leading some very impressive attacks, but could not find a gap in the Estonian defense at first, and their attempts to cross were inaccurate. Although the home team was clearly in the ascendancy, the first big save of the game came from Hungarian goalkeeper Dénes Dibusz after a quarter of an hour, at the end of a sporadic counter-attack by the visitors. The first Hungarian shot on goal came after 20 minutes, but Roland Sallai’s effort was no trouble for the visiting keeper. Hungary’s play became slower and less accurate as time went on, and less action reached the Estonian goal.
Then, the Hungarians took the lead in the 41st minute with a header from Ádám Martin, who scored his first goal for the national team.
In the second half, Hungarians had a chance to take a penalty kick. Roland Sallai and Dominik Szoboszlai decided who would kick the penalty with a rock-paper-scissors, and eventually Sallai did it, but unfortunately he could not score, so the game ended 1-0.
Hungarians fans sang the national anthem together with the national football team at the end of the match. Photo: MTI/Mónus Márton
Despite the win, national team captain Marco Rossi was unhappy with the performance of the Hungarian national football team in the friendly match against Estonia.
“I am not satisfied. There were better periods when we managed to do what we had planned, i.e. to disrupt the opponent’s defense with more active play on the wing, but we lacked continuity in our play,” the Italian coach said. He was also critical of the fact that Szoboszlai and Sallai used a game of rock-paper-scissors to decide who would kick the penalty, which the latter then missed in the second half.
️Marco Rossi: Voltak jó kezdeményezéseink, de túl sok ki nem kényszertett hibát követtünk el. Próbáltak a védelmünk mögé ívelni és megszerezni a lepattanókat. Erre figyelnünk kell, ami leginkább koncentráció kérdése.#magyarok #csakegyutt #HUNEST – 1-0 pic.twitter.com/um17ApOt7f
— MLSZ (@MLSZhivatalos) March 23, 2023
“If there is a designated player to take the penalty, he should take it. If it happens at 3-0 I could understand it, but at 1-0 it was irresponsible. I have already discussed this with Soboszlai. I hope it does not happen again in the future because if Estonia had equalized, I would have been very embarrassed even though it was a friendly match,” stated Rossi, who also said his team had made a lot of unforced errors and performed a lot of inaccurate passing.
The national team will host Bulgaria in a European Championship qualifier on Monday. The match starts at 08:45 pm at Puskás Aréna.
Featured photo via MTI/Mónus Márton