Hungary's 3-1 Win Overshadowed by Stadium Scare and Szoboszlai's Performance
For a few unsettling seconds in Debrecen, football simply stopped.
Hungary’s 3-1 friendly win over Kazakhstan at the Nagyerdei Stadion should have been remembered for Dominik Szoboszlai’s authority and a landmark night for a young Liverpool goalkeeper. Instead, the game will be etched into memory for a stadium malfunction that could have ended in disaster.
Camera crash halts play
Midway through the first half, with Hungary still chasing the game, a TV camera suspended from the stadium roof began to misbehave. Hungarian media reported that the cable supporting the device caught fire, and the camera started smoking high above the pitch.
Then it dropped.
From around 20 metres up, the heavy electronic rig came crashing down, slamming into the turf just a couple of metres from a pitchside cameraman. The impact shattered the equipment and stunned the stadium into silence.
Remarkably, nobody was injured. Players and officials quickly moved away as the debris lay on the grass, and the referee halted play while staff removed the wreckage. Only once the area was cleared and everyone assured themselves that no one had been hurt did the match restart.
The sense of relief was obvious. This could have been a very different story.
Szoboszlai takes control
When the football resumed, Hungary still had a job to do. They had fallen behind in the ninth minute and trailed at the break, but their captain dragged them back into the contest.
Szoboszlai, wearing the armband and dictating the tempo from midfield, struck early in the second half to level the score. It was the moment Hungary needed, a clean finish from the Liverpool man that shifted the mood inside the Nagyerdei Stadion from anxious to expectant.
The pressure finally told again. Szoboszlai turned provider, sliding the pass for Andras Schäfer to put the hosts in front. From a goal down and shaken by the earlier incident, Hungary suddenly looked in complete control, their captain at the heart of it all.
Kazakhstan faded. Hungary grew in confidence. The match, once chaotic, settled into a familiar rhythm: home side probing, visitors hanging on.
Liverpool’s Pecsi steps onto the senior stage
There was another Liverpool subplot unfolding behind Szoboszlai’s headline act.
Just after the hour mark, Armin Pecsi was sent on for his senior international debut. The 21-year-old, a reserve goalkeeper at Anfield, has yet to play a first-team minute for Liverpool but now has his first cap for his country.
Pecsi joined Liverpool last summer and has spent the season working in the shadows, even coming close to an unexpected Premier League appearance when Freedie Woodman needed lengthy treatment against Crystal Palace on April 25, with both Alisson Becker and Giorgi Mamardashvili already out injured. That chance never materialised, but in Debrecen he finally stepped onto a major stage.
His introduction passed without the drama that had gripped the first half, which for a goalkeeper is usually the sign of a good night.
Tóth applies the finishing touch
As Kazakhstan chased an equaliser late on, spaces opened up. Bournemouth’s Alex Tóth exploited them in stoppage time, finishing calmly to seal a 3-1 victory and put a more routine scoreline on a night that had been anything but routine.
By the final whistle, Hungary had their comeback, Szoboszlai had a goal and an assist, Schäfer and Tóth had their moments, and Pecsi had his debut.
Yet there was a stark reminder hanging over it all: one falling camera, one stroke of luck, and no injuries to report.
Szoboszlai, Pecsi and Milos Kerkez, who did not feature against Kazakhstan, will now watch this month’s FIFA World Cup from afar after Hungary’s failure to qualify. Performances like this, and nights as strange and charged as the one in Debrecen, only sharpen the question: how long can a group with this kind of talent stay away from the game’s biggest stage?
