http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2012/..._euro2012.html
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Bosnia & Herzegovina at home on the 26th May. Hungary away on the 4th June. An away friendly — you don't see that too often these days.
Bosnia & Herzegovina seem like a decent side — they're 19th in the world rankings and their results over the past year have been reasonable. They seem like they're roughly around the same standard as us. They got unmercifully hammered by Portugal in their final Euro 2012 Playoff game (6 - 2), but were unbeaten in 7 games prior to that (including an away fixture to France).
Hungary are 37th in the world and came third in a pretty tough qualifying group that included two automatic qualifiers, Netherlands and Sweden. They lost three times in that group, including twice to Holland (but they beat everyone twice apart from Sweden, who beat them after Holland had already qualified). Their home record seems very good in general — they've won 6, drawn 1 and lost 1 in the past year, scoring 23 goals in the process. It'll probably be a tough enough game.
Bosnia should be a good test. Capitulated in the final 10/15 minutes against Portugal when the tie was over and almost beat the French away which would have seen them win the group.
Hungary is surely due to its proximity with Poland?
Bosnia should be a good test, but I reckon a few of their main players will be finding something else to do at the end of May
An away friendly on a Monday is even rarer, albeit Bank Holiday Monday here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Serb
Games against the Magyars have always been competitive. We won in Budapest 20 years ago, coming from behind to win a friendly. They won the game in Dublin in 1993, while we last played them competitively qualifying for the Italy 1990 World Cup. A win at home and a draw away helped us beat them to qualification.