Hungary kicks off football year to a bad start

In the debut of its new coach, Attila Pintér, Hungary's national football team lost 1-2 to Finland in a friendly game in Gyõr, NW Hungary. The two sides will also meet in the qualification campaign for the 2016 European Football Championships starting this September.

In a balanced first half, Hungary took the lead in the 13th minute through striker Rudolf Gergely whose handling the ball went unnoticed by the referee before his shot went past the clumsily defending Finnish keeper Niki Mäenpää.

After the first quarter of an hour, Hungary began to concentrate on protecting their lead and this gave more space to the Finns for attack. The Scandinavian efforts bore fuit in the 74th minute when a ball sent into the six-yard in front of the Hungarian goal was pushewd into the net by Finnish striker Joel Pohjanpalo.

The Finns continued to be more active and ten minutes later they scored the winning goal. Hunharian defender Roland Juhász fouled Finnish striker Përparim Hetemaj within the box and the penalty awarded was sent int the lower right corner of the net by Alexei Eremenko.

In preparation for the European qualifyers, Hungary will play three matches this spring - all three on home soil: against Denmark, Albania and Kazakhstan.