Men's World Championship Qualifier: another hour-long fascination

The two teams produced an eventful first quarter: significant shots were fired towards the goals from the outside, and even though the Greeks initially had the upper hand, following a 1-2 score, Zsombor Ekler scored his second goal, and after a saved disadvantage, David Tatrai found the right corner, giving us the lead for the first time. Gkillas also found the corner from the outside, but then a brilliant man-up situation from Ákos was converted by Ádám with a lob, followed by a successful shot by Vendel Vigvári, making it 5-3 after eight minutes.

In the second period, we once again mishandled a lefty-wall man-up, this time through Gergő Burián and Dani Angyal, unfortunately allowing the Greeks to turn it around after a good block, and our friend Argyropoulos did not show mercy.

The boys delivered against six defenders, finished off by Vigvári from the outside - then Viktor Gyapjas made a great save in a disadvantage, but during the next play, there was no solution to their cross-pass. Ákos Nagy's cheeky action goal replaced Zerdevas, Gyapjas made another save (again in a disadvantage), and then reached for a shot from the outside, resulting in our fifth goal. However, the Greeks tried to convince their coach to challenge a situation involving Angyal, but Coach Vlachos encouraged them to play instead - they had to endure a deficit of four after Manhercz scored the penalty.

Unfortunately, the Greek substitute goalkeeper, Tsortsatos, was more successful, with the ball even bouncing off the post edge, and at 0:19, Nikolaidis managed to flick a rebound into the net, despite Gyapjas making a huge initial save. Then, to make Tsortsatos feel less comfortable, Ekler's sneaky ball hooked on Péter Kovács's hand, just three seconds before the buzzer, ending the first half at 10-6. (By the way, we had 9 saves and 4 blocks, while they had 5 saves, indicating the main difference.)

After some back and forth, we managed to capitalize on the Greeks' vulnerability and Manhercz fired a fantastic shot over the disheveled defense. Then, within a single attack, we defended two disadvantages well, with Gyapjas pulling off an otherworldly save on the first, followed by a great block from Vigvári. The Hungarian team kept pushing forward, with a turnover leading to another five-man situation, and Burián putting it in place; we were already leading by six. With a somewhat unexpected goal, Kakaris reduced the gap with a deflected shot but that was acceptable. Despite the goalposts helping the Greeks quite a bit, they struggled in front of our dictated tempo, wearing them down significantly.

At 1:47, Coach Zsolt Varga called a timeout to prevent any unexpected occurrences - Krisztián Bedő hit the crossbar with a clear chance, like Kakaris, thus settling things before Manhercz cleverly scored the next man-up with the goalkeeper's hands. At 0:27, there was another Greek man-up, followed by a timeout, and Dimou pulled off a beautiful shot from a pass - but then a foul was called right after the center start, resulting in another man-up which Burián masterfully placed into the far corner at 0:03, hence ending the third quarter at 14-8.

The Greek team did not appreciate the Japanese referee's unique interpretation, receiving a bizarre exclusion - which did not bother Vigvári, who calmly placed the ball in the corner. Subsequently, the Greeks were gifted a penalty, but Vince Varga's block spoiled their chance. At this point, they completely fell apart, and David Tátrai sensed their lack of seriousness, concluding the match at 16-8 with a magnificent shot at 5:48. More goals followed, with Varga being encouraged by his teammates to shoot, resulting in the youngest field player scoring a goal, then Ákos Nagy adding one more at the end of another fantastic play... At 20-8, it truly raised the question of how this team managed to outclass the complete Greek squad to such an extent?

Finally, to make it less ugly (as we were leading 6-0 in the fourth quarter), goals were harvested from two line rotations, leaving ten in between - and our only task from now on is to keep our feet firmly on the ground after such a soaring performance.

Head Coach Zsolt Varga

“First and foremost, the team deserves praise because the guys played really well today, but immediately after, we must keep both feet firmly on the ground. We need to be realistic and understand that Greece is one of the best teams in the world, but everyone can have a bad day. Today was their bad day, their goalkeepers did not perform well, they had to make substitutions, their attacks were not sharp enough - while everything worked for us at ninety, or maybe ninety-five percent: the defense, the offense, the man-up situations, fantastic saves were made, there was a huge difference in blocking. And in such moments, this difference is even more evident in the result because in this new style of play, there are many more attacks, around thirty percent per match, and if one team does everything so much better, what used to be five or six goals can now easily escalate to ten.

It is important not to burden ourselves unnecessarily after a few successful matches, meaning not to expect things to always go this way from now on because they won't. Of course, if it could be like this, if things could go this way every time, let's engrave it in the Book of Creation - but we must be aware that everyone is watching videos, everyone is analyzing each other, they are getting closer in the game, and in the big world competitions, it ultimately decides on that specific day where there are more saves, where there are fewer mistakes. We caught a great wave now, but the end of the road is still far away, the goal we set for ourselves is still far ahead.”

Men's World Cup Qualifier, Division I - Bucharest, Otopeni

Hungary vs. Greece 20-10 (5-3, 5-3, 4-2, 6-2)

Our goals: Ekler Zs. 3, Vendel Vigvári 3, Manhercz 3, Tátrai D. 3, Ádám Nagy 2, Ákos Nagy 2, Burián 2, Angyal, Varga V.