Men's U19 European Championship: concrete at the back, but no breakthrough at the front
Our national team lost the semi-final at the U19 European Championship in Burgas. Although Montenegro still led 6-3 before the last quarter, we got back into the game in 53 seconds at the beginning of the final part, but in the last seven minutes we couldn't score a goal either; i.e. we zeroed them out in vain, with five goals scored and only 12 balls reaching the goalkeeper out of 27, even here it is not possible to reach the finals, despite the fact that our goalkeeper, Gergő Szabó, concreted the back with 15 saves. The battle for bronze remains.
Elemér Gidófalvy shot through the zone in the first place from the first attack, but we did not overcome the disadvantage, then Gergő Szabó saved the left-handed Stupar's shot. After a more sluggish attack, Gojkovic's shot was also caught, again just from the ball, but we shot a crossbar and then a block from the first. We were a bit stuck up front, as good news, this time Szabó was quite solid on his feet, he defended the crosses in a row, but at the same time it is typical that we only had two balls in the goal in the first eight minutes out of six, the team that rallied for the last seconds missed a bad pass, i.e. they were on the attack what to improve (1-2).
The second part started like the first - a long shot from Montenegro, then a great finish for us, this time after four horses, from the edge, courtesy of Vince Varga. The next moment was no different, Montenegrin forum, this time with a fast, close finish. After two zoning goalposts, we finally patiently pulled through the six-on-five, so we also managed to sink the defensive wall, from Márton Zeman's equalizing shot. The Montenegrins were afraid of Marcell Szécsi like fire, so they zoned deep, but the shots didn't come around that time, and Leinweber's series of moves forcing a foul was not rewarded by the referees. Szabó, on the other hand, defended a crazy big deficit, but he still didn't run ahead - he felt that both teams were after hard games, the shots lacked real sharpness: we were 13/3, they were 14/3 (goal: 5 -9).
Our advantage at the start of the third part lacked sharpness again, the goalkeeper defended, there Janovic hit the long shot from behind, i.e. they took the lead again from the front. Then they increased it - they solved his fight more intelligently, and of their two fixed bombers, Gojkovic now crushed the long bottom. With us, Lugosi finally fought his way into a position in the center, but pushed the ball over him. A Montenegrin attack that produced four shots and lasted more than one minute was stopped, so that Leinweber blasted the ball away from the wing, and then the rival had another angular action. These two minutes of defense and twenty seconds of attack didn't help our energy reserves - and then somehow we managed to get out of a fight, the time-out was more for resting. The passes could have been of higher quality because of this - the ball was not shot until the whistle; which was a problem because they blew a slightly opinionated five on a rebound from a ten-meter shot, Janovic beat it, i.e. it was 3-6 instead of 4-5, with 1:43 before the whistle, or we were 0-3 in this quarter, and it was not very clear how we were going to score. It didn't go from square again, this time Zeman blew it into the block - we were at 17/3 in terms of shots at that time, and although Montenegro's 25/6 wasn't a showcase either, it still started the final part with 3-6, which didn't bode well. .
In any case, Vince Varga cut the advantage from the end of the previous quarter out of anger - then Szabó defended a center screw, a pull back turned into another goal, Leinweber didn't wait for the defense to stand up - we made a match again in 53 seconds from the semi-finals (5-6). Szabó defended at a disadvantage, and then came another advantage, but Leinweber could not pass the ball over the block, although now the movement was less suitable. Czech Maxim roared a through shot, that is, we had two balls to play before we had to do something against the minus two deficit. We did, the left-hander was covered by Szabó - for us, Zalán Nagy tried to solve the problem from the wrong hand side, but the block on the other side saved him; then Róbert Kovács received a "posthumous" red card after running into the half-court at the previous rebound and complaining about what he did to Gidófalvy during the battle for the ball. Unfortunately, we couldn't play the zone, they didn't have much power, but the result was already frozen in the fifth minute. Leinweber finally got a free throw, but the block saved many times, and we were already at 1:30. Szabó swallowed another ball - this was his 15th save - but on the other hand, we made a goal from the center, at 0:49, after a timeout. Varga took it upon himself to complete the match, actually without serving, from the middle, after the horse, but the ball shot back was too flat, a treat for the goalkeeper - he only made the 7th save, but this was the one that managed to get his team to the final , because even though we had five seconds at the very end, Leinweber's last ball under pressure landed without a chance - to the block.
It was a big battle, but even though we didn't score a goal in the last quarter, it was a bit like the senior national team's semi-final against the Croatians in Paris - we didn't even manage to add another goal in the last seven minutes. They had 21 of 31 shots on goal, ours only 12 of 27; this showed that the machine was slowing down a bit. Let's just say that the Montenegrins slowed it down as well as they could, and in addition, we couldn't do anything with their recently developed line-up defense, just like the Serbians did the other day (exploitation of goals: 11/3 and 8/5, we missed the last three) - that's how they won the their first match here in regular time. This is a final - we have the bronze medal, which will not be easy at all.
Men's U19 European Championship, Burgas
Semifinal
Montenegro-Hungary 6-5 (2-1, 1-2, 3-0, 0-2)< /p>
Goals: Varga V. 2, Gidófalvy, Leinweber, Zeman
