Hungarian Conservative

Pete Gogolak, a Hungarian immigrant, changed the way placekickers take field goal attempts in the NFL—his ‘soccer-style’ method is still used in the league today. He is celebrating his 82nd birthday today.

Just a few weeks ago, Liverpool was the favourite to win the Premier League with eight games to go and a two-point lead. However, things have changed a lot for the team recently, and for the worse: they are third in the league and lost to Atalanta 3–0 at home in the Europa League. Some fans are even turning on Szoboszlai himself. Where will he go from here?

SC Freiburg winger Roland Sallai’s value has been raised to €15 million from €12 million by the online football database Transfermarkt.com. Meanwhile, Dominik Szoboszlai, currently in an intense title race with Liverpool, remains our highest-valued player at €75 million.

Although the legendary Hungarian footballer was born on 1 April 1927, he always celebrated his birthday on 2 April, as he did not like the fact that it happened to fall on April Fools’ Day. He captained the legendary Mighty Magyar side of the 1950s, leading them to an Olympic gold and a World Cup final. He won the European Cup with Real Madrid three times, scoring four goals in the 1960 final—a record unbroken since.

The purple-pink version of the Cross of St George has elicited disapproval and outrage in many people in the United Kingdom, including former English National Team players and coaches, and even Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The Seklerland club ended up beating Petrolul 2–1, thus finishing fifth in the league. But the game was not without controversy. The match had to be stopped for three minutes in the first half, after anti-Hungarian chants were started by the home fans as Sepsi took the lead. One of the players was even hit on the head with a lighter thrown from the spectators’ stand.

In the final, the Hungarian national team lost 2–0 to the host Mexico, finishing as the runners-up in the Socca Copa America tournament in Cancún, Mexico. Martin Vörös-Torma emerged as the tournament’s top scorer.

Hungary will be playing Türkiye, Kosovo, Ireland, and Malta in preparation for Euro 2024 in Germany.

The winners of the 66th edition of the award show were announced live on air on M4 Sport, at the ceremonial Athletes of the Year Awards show at the Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest on Monday evening.

We can say, albeit cautiously, that 2023 was a year of struggle for many of us, but a year of achievements and success, too. If we take the word ‘struggle’ out of the previous sentence, we could even turn this assessment into a New Year’s wish.

The Hungarian midfielder, who is running a great season with Liverpool so far, has been valued even higher than Kylian Mbappé.

In his year-in-review interview with the Hungarian sports daily Nemzeti Sport, the Prime Minister has also made the claim that ‘the time has come when Budapest cannot further develop to any great degree without the Olympics.’

Boxing Day football is a tradition in England that goes all the way back to the 19th century. A handful of Hungarian footballers have had the chance to participate in it in the modern, Premier League era. They include Crystal Palace goalkeeper Gábor Király, and West Brom and Fulham midfielder Zoltán Gera. This Christmas, we get to root for Dominik Szoboszlai at Liverpool and Milos Kerkez at Bournemouth.

Publication of the latest work by Attila Futaki, a comic book artist of international fame, is an important domestic event: it presents the life and career of Ferenc Puskás.

The Hungarian National Team, going for their third consecutive European Championship in a row, got placed into Group A. They will start their campaign against Switzerland, then face host nation Germany and Scotland, in that order.

Hungary won their Euro 2024 qualifying group unbeaten and ended the entire year without losing a single game. The National Team gave very little opportunity for the small minority of contrarians, actively rooting against them, to gloat.

Securing a spot in the 2024 UEFA European Championship marks a historic achievement for the Hungarian national football team, as it is the first time since the memorable 1985 campaign that they have qualified for a major tournament without the need for playoffs.

The new national stadium opened its door exactly four years ago today—its inaugural game was an international football friendly between Hungary and Uruguay. Since then, it has seen many great clashes and has routinely been filled to the brim with fans in the past few years.

One of the star players of the Israeli national team brought with him the boot of a kidnapped football player, which he showed reporters at the press conference in Felcsút.

Israel had to postpone their last two European Championship qualifiers last month due to the Hamas attacks. Now, as Israel is not yet safe enough to host football games for their national team, they found their temporary home at the Pancho Arena in Felcsút, Hungary. This is not the first time Hungary provides a temporary home turf for a foreign football team.

Since the stadium is located within a rural community, the impact of its external facades may be limited. However, its internal architecture, expressed through elements such as soaring roof extensions that break the monotony of the exterior shell, creates an intimate and captivating atmosphere. These glimpses into the arena’s interior offer an enticing taste of the intense battles happening on the ‘pitch.’

The Hungarian Football National Team can secure a place at the Euro 2024 in Germany as early as tonight if they manage to beat Lithuania, which they are well positioned to do.

The Italian-born sportsman received his Certificate of Citizenship from President Katalin Novák at the Sándor Palace. With Rossi’s leadership, the National Team has achieved outstanding results, such as beating England 4–0 in the Nations League.

György Szöllősi, who serves as both the chief editor for the Hungarian sports daily Nemzeti Sport and Vice President of the International Sports Press Association Europe was invited to give the keynote address at a football cup organized by the Hungarian diaspora living in North America in Chicago, Illinois. However, despite his high prestige in his profession, his visa application was inexplicably denied by the US Embassy in Hungary.

The young Hungarian supertalent beat World Cup-winning Argentine goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez with a shot from the edge of the area after a corner, giving the lead to Liverpool. The game ended in a 3–0 victory for the Reds against Aston Villa. This was the first time a Hungarian player scored in the English Premier League in over a decade.

The 22-year-old Hungary National Team captain has played through all three Premier League games for his title-challenging Liverpool side this season. The British media is also impressed with his performance. It’s been a long time since a player from Hungary has played such a prominent role at such a prestigious club.

It would have been too great of a risk for Szoboszlai to go against his teammates and refuse to take a knee on his Premier League debut. While playing for the Hungarian National Team, however, he did just that: he, along with his teammates, refused to kneel before the two Nations League games against England in 2022, and they won both times.

Meanwhile, the Hungarian women’s sabre team also won a gold medal of their own at the FIE Fencing World Championships. Hungary tends to overperform in sports compared to its population size consistently.

In an interview with the website of Puskás Akadémia, the prime minister expressed that Hungarian football is not part of the entertainment industry, but rather part of the Hungarian people’s lives and their national identity.

István András Kiss spent many years playing for the Kolozsvár (Cluj) team CFR; he even won the national youth league with their youth team in 1985. In this interview he speaks about what it was like to be an ethnic Hungarian football player in Communist Romania, where ‘class warfare and chauvinism could easily co-exist’.