Hungary Women’s U19s on brink of qualification after fine win over Serbia

Edina Farádi-Szabó scored the vital goal which gave Hungary Women’s Under 19 team a crucial single-goal victory over Serbia yesterday and left Sándor Turtóczki’s team needing only to match Serbia’s result in the final group fixtures on Sunday in order to reach the Elite round of the 2016 European Championship.

Turtóczki had made several changes to the team that performed so valiantly in the narrow defeat to Germany on matchday 1 but it made no difference to the team’s defiance as they repelled everything Serbia could throw at them. This was a more open game than that defeat though and Hungary had chances of their own, most notably through the outstanding footballer on the pitch Hungarian captain Zsanette Kaján, but she couldn’t quite convert any of them.

Instead the goalscoring burden fell to Farádi-Szabó who scored the game’s only goal with a spectacular long-range strike in the 40th minute of the first half. Despite chances for both sides, the scoreline stayed the same and means that Hungary now only need to beat group minnows Kazakhstan, who lost 7-0 to Germany yesterday in the other match, on Sunday or match Serbia’s result in order to qualify for next spring’s Elite round which will determine who qualifies for the 2016 European Championship tournament proper.