Qualifying for the European Championship was easy: the Hungarian national team strolled through its qualifying group and remained unbeaten in all eight games. The basis for the success was the stable defense around Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Gulasci, who only conceded seven goals in the qualification.
The biggest star of the second group opponent, however, has little to do with defending. Although Dominik Szoboszlai alternates between the bench and the starting eleven at Liverpool FC, he is the undisputed leader in the national team. The attacking midfielder, who moved from Leipzig to the Premier League in 2023, takes almost all set pieces and sets the pace in midfield. On the pitch, Szoboszlai is the extended arm of coach Marco Rossi.
The Italian-born coach has been in charge of the Hungarians since 2018 with great success. The 60-year-old, who took Hungarian citizenship in 2023, led the team to the European Championship in 2021. There, Hungary narrowly failed in the preliminary round after a 2-2 draw in the final group match against Germany. Rossi began his coaching career in 2002 with Udinese Calcio’s youth team. He took on his first top-flight job in 2012 when he took over Honved Budapest. After a stint in Slovakia with Dunajska Streda, he succeeded Georges Leekens as Hungarian national coach.
From 2000 until Rossi took office, 13 different coaches sat on the Hungarian bench. Rossi brought consistency to the national team and gave the team a playing identity over the years. The team defines itself through the strong defense and great passion that their coach exemplifies on the sidelines. “He is typically Italian: he is very emotional, he is very loud and places a lot of emphasis on tactics. He wants us to always show a high level of discipline,” said Hungary’s defense chief Willi Orban, who is under contract with RB Leipzig, about Rossi.
Hungary travels to the European Championship with great confidence, even though the team lost the last tough test before the tournament. In Ireland, they suffered an unfortunate 1-2 defeat, with the clearly inferior hosts scoring the winning goal in injury time. Before that, Hungary’s last defeat was in September 2022. After the 0-2 defeat against Italy, the team started an impressive winning streak. In the 14 unbeaten games, however, they did not face the really big opponents, in the qualifying group, the Rossi team left Serbia, Montenegro, Lithuania and Bulgaria behind.
The Hungarians, who have five Bundesliga professionals (Gulasci and Orban from Leipzig, Hertha’s Marton Dardai, Union’s Andras Schäfer and Roland Sallai from Freiburg) in their squad, are a candidate for the round of 16. However, the team’s playing quality is unlikely to be sufficient to win the knockout round.
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