Women's U18 World Cup: two seven-minute scoreless periods did not fit

The opening eight minutes were top-notch - after a blocked deficit, Eszter Varró took the lead from an excellently played fore. Although the Spaniards also scored the next goal, in the long back-and-forth we managed to gain a tempo advantage until a five-meter goal, which Natasa Lendvai put in. The Spanish answer came quickly, again from the front, but later, 47 seconds before the whistle, Kata Hajdu conjured a drop from an unlikely place, and then the quarter-final Spanish six-in-five ended it all with a ball steal, so we went to Suzanne with a 3-2 lead.

And the second part also started encouragingly, after all, Luca Torma saved the fifth - and then there was a fore... It didn't go in, and from here we started going down the slope almost inexplicably. The rival's best, Queralt Anton, started to rebuild his confidence after the missed penalty by taking advantage of an advantage, and then the left-handed Almeda checkedmate two minutes later, again from a corner, so they were already in the lead. We had an awful lot of inaccuracies in the attack, Tiba Panna, who was reactivated after breaking his hand in Zagreb, shot the crossbar from wide, and then the goalkeeper saved the next long shot, but Temprano's not very steely outside ball somehow slipped under Torma's hands, so they were already leading 5-3, i.e. in this part we were at 0-3 as the last minute began.

But then Zoé Lendvay finally got in a shot as it should be in the man advantage, and after a great possession Hajdu still had time to get into a position and to equalize - in the last 40 seconds, we brought back everything that we had axed until then, i.e. the second half started at 5-5.

In retrospect, one wonders how the match will turn out if Varró is excellent from our first attack his cross didn't bounce off the top of the crossbar, because the goal was more than enough in that... But then, despite the fact that we saved a deficit, they made it five again from a deflected ball, and they didn't make that mistake again. And then, again, to put it into perspective, the game was over in about a minute. Because what up until now was considered the main and relatively successful direction of attack in the defense of both guards - to direct the shots to the wrong-hand side - we also had a gap in the shield there: Anton scored from a relatively far distance, and then, after our disintegrating attack, although we were outnumbered, not in our heads, and Almeda scored a quasi-turnover goal. Another 3-0 streak, and now a three-goal deficit, and the whole thing happened in just 72 seconds - no wonder our girls' team, accustomed to victories in recent years, looked for a solution in vain. Even what had been giving the team a boost so far didn't work: one or two in each corner, Tiba brought the ball too close to the goalkeeper, who jumped on him, and it was rather called an underwater ball. Later, a time-out goal went without a shot - finally the ice was broken again at the very end, but Hajdu's five-meter shot 35 seconds before the last break gave us only faint hope this time, as we had to go from minus two to the final part.

In which hope lasted for four minutes, but it was not possible to halve the difference, and when the Spaniards took advantage after a timeout - Almeda scored for the fourth time - the game was more or less decided. Especially since the hero of the Italian match, Natasa Lendvai, also scored a goal, and although Varró then curled a sensational shot from the center, at 2:18 the improvement seemed a little late. Still, something brightened up, possession of the ball, a goal - but it didn't go well for Tiba (he wasn't in the game due to his injury), his sixth shot didn't score a goal, there was still a chance at 1:20, so when József Sike scored with 52 seconds before the bagpipe, he asked for time at 7-9, it was clear that there would be no going back from here. Okay, the Spanish U19s brought back the bronze medal against us in Burgas, but that was two weeks ago, here Zoé Lendvay's ball went seven on six, then they blew a ball into our attack, which was taking place on an all-important basis, which was thrown into the empty goal, this is how it happened The end is 10-7.

Or two series continued in parallel: while, just like last year, our national teams reached four out of six age group world competitions - no other European country was able to do that - we lost the fifth game in this year's competitions to the against the Spaniards in the straight-elimination stage.

One way or another, the girls still have a shot at a medal: they just need to bounce back from the Americans for their opening-day shootout loss.

Women's U18 World Championship, Chengdu

Semifinal

Spain-Hungary 10-7 (2 -3, 3-2, 3-1, 2-1)

Goals: Hajdu 3, Varró 2, Lendvay Z., Lendvai N.

In the other semifinal: United States-Greece 8-13