Two nations of shared linguistic ancestry who did not qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup met at Puskás Arena, the venue for the UEFA Champions League final last weekend, for an international friendly on Friday, 5 June. Hungary took on Finland.
Finland were the opponents in head coach Marco Rossi’s debut game on the Hungarian bench back in September 2018. No one could have guessed at the time that the Italian would still lead the red-white-and-green national team almost eight years later.
Finland had already played a friendly in the June international break before the World Cup, which they lost to Germany 4–0. Hungary, on the other hand, had not played a game since tying Greece in March in another non-competitive game.
Péter Szappanos, who plays for Puskás Akadémia on the club level, started in the Hungarian goal. Coach Rossi announced that this would be the farewell game for the national team for the 35-year-old goalie. He had only collected two caps before the game—it is unusual that a player with such limited international play gets a farewell match. However, Rossi explained that Szappanos’s locker room presence and leadership status in the social hierarchy of the team merited that honour.
Hungary captain Dominik Szoboszlai, who has just been voted Player of the Season at his prestigious English Premier League club Liverpool, was also included in the starting line-up for the home side.
His famously deadly free kicks were, in large part, what earned him the POY award at Liverpool. He had an opportunity to showcase his set-piece skills early into the game, when Hungary earned a free kick from a great position around 25 yards out, but he put it high and wide.
In the 26th minute, however, Szoboszlai’s corner proved to be highly efficient. Another specialist in the Hungary squad, ‘master of the air’ and fresh Greek champion with AEK Athens Barnabás Varga, headed the ball straight into the Finnish net from the captain’s corner kick.
Varga proved that he can do more than ‘just’ banging headers into the goal. In the 43rd minute, he fired a low shot from the edge of the D, which ricocheted into the net from the far post—Hungary went into half-time two goals up.
At the beginning of the second half, young defensive midfielder Tamás Szűcs of Debrecen came close to scoring. From about 20 yards out, he fired a low shot to the bottom far corner (right where Varga scored his second goal), but he missed by a few inches.
Áron Yaakobishvili made his debut in goal for the Hungarian national team, coming in for the freshly retired Szappanos. He was called into action soon, and was able to save the short-range shot by Topi Keskinen in the 69th minute.
Three minutes later, however, the rookie keeper could not keep out the long-range shot from Mjällby AIF defender Tony Miettinen, who fired into the bottom near corner from about 27 yards away. This was Miettinen’s first international goal at the senior level.
Kerkez could not take advantage of the great chance at the other end in response. He got a ball behind the Finnish defensive line, took a shot from about six yards out from a tight angle, but the ball lashed across the face of goal and out for a goal kick. In the 79th, debutant Yaakobishvili pulled off an amazing reaction save: Keskinen was all clear and unmarked at the Hungarian PK spot and took a stirke, but the young keeper stuck his arm out just in time to parry the ball away.
The scoreline did not change for the remainder of the game. Hungary won 2–1 and successfully collected some ‘confidence points’ for their fall UEFA National League campaign in League B, against Ukraine, Georgia, and Northern Ireland.
However, there is one last thing on the agenda for Marco Rossi and his boys before that: another international friendly against Kazakhstan, in Debrecen, Hungary on 9 June.
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