It was a sad day for sports fans when England lost to Hungary by four goals. This makes for their second loss of the year to Hungary. Worse, it’s their second loss (again, to Hungary) in ten days. The Three Lions were expected to beat the Hungarians at home, but goals from Roland Sallai, Zsolt Nagy, and Daniel Gazdag secured a memorable victory for the Hungarians.
The crowd also jeered the players at the game’s end, which drove the loss home. Chants of “you don’t know what you’re doing” rang from the crowd. This latest loss is part of a trend, making it worth a closer look to understand better what went wrong.
Taking A Closer Look
Due partly to this most recent game, England is still in the bottom three of Group A3 in the Nations League. This is the team’s worst position in the tournament’s history.
The performance against Hungary was the worst in a long time, though hopefully, it will be the last for now. The Four-goal loss at the hands of the Hungarian team is England’s most prominent home defeat since a 5-1 loss to Scotland in 1928. It also marked the first time in the country’s history that they conceded multiple goals in a game. Since going sixty years without a loss to Hungary, the Three Lions have now lost to the hosts twice in days.
John Stones was sent off during the game against Hungary, which made him the fourth red card of the tournament for England. During the first four matches of the tournament, the Three Lions had as many red cards as the goals scored. That is, to say, one.
In the Nations League, San Marino is the only team with fewer goals than England. Other countries such as Lithuania, Hungary, and Gibraltar have also scored (at least) one goal.
To provide some perspective, since they last scored an open-play goal during the match against Ivory Coast in March, England has gone a total of three hundred and sixty minutes without scoring a single goal.
After the international break, club football will be resumed for England when they face Italy on September 23 in Milan. The Three Lions suffered a colossal defeat against Germany, who went down 5-2.
