The Hungarian National Team travelled the 1,900-mile (3,000-kilometre) distance to Yerevan, Armenia with one goal in mind: to make their first World Cup qualification play-offs since 1997. Back then, things didn’t go too well for the Hungarians: the now-dissolved Yugoslavia knocked them out of contention for the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France with a 12–1 aggregate score.
Evidently, Head Coach Marco Rossi’s team is hoping to get much more out of this qualification campaign. They faced Armenia away on Thursday, 13 November.
And they took a huge step towards the play-offs in the 33rd minute: Barnabás Varga headed home captain Dominik Szoboszlai’s cross into the box. It would be hard to say Hungary had been a constant threat to the Armenian goal before that—it was their first shot on target.
Still, it was enough for Varga to continue his amazing goalscoring form this season. This was the fourth one on his tally in four games in the qualification group. Remarkably, he scored three of those with a header!
After his assist, Liverpool star Szoboszlai came very close to scoring one himself in the second half, but Armenian Sergey Muradyan flicked the ball away from him in front of an open goal in the 62nd minute.
Nair Tiknizyan and Arayik Eloyan had two pretty big chances on the other end, but Tiknizyan missed the target, while Eloyan, right before the final whistle, missed the ball with his kick completely.
Thus, the scoreline remained 1–0 to Hungary. If Portugal beat Ireland in the second game of the group tonight, the Hungarian side’s match against Ireland on Sunday, 16 November at the Puskás Arena in Budapest, Hungary will have nothing on the line, as Hungary’s second-place finish, and thus a spot in the European play-offs, will be mathematically secured.
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