EURO 2020: NB I players tied in playing the most from the region of Hungary

In the region, compared to the leagues of the neighboring countries, only the Ukrainian topflight sent more players (19) to the European Championship than NB I (17). However, there was no difference in the number of players playing between the two countries. 13 players each from the Ukrainian Premjer Liha and NB I played at Euro 2020.

From our region (Hungary and its neighboring countries), it's true for Croatia, Hungary, and Ukraine that it's possible to make the national team in large numbers from their leagues. The Croatian squad of 26 included seven players from local clubs, and there were six European Championship participants from other national teams who play in the Croatian first division. In this article, NSO examined only the leagues of the neighboring countries of Hungary, but from the point of view of the wider region, it's also true of the Czech national team prefers to build on domestic players (11 Czech footballers were included in Jaroslav Silhavy's squad).

Of the 17 NB I players, the Hungarian national team's two substitute goalkeepers, Dénes Dibusz and Ádám Bogdán, as well as newcomers Bendegúz Bolla and János Hahn, didn't play. Endre Botka was the only national team player from footballers playing in Hungary (including all players who were signed to NB I club during the European Championship) who played through every match (270 minutes). Then, Attila Fiola (266 minutes) was a starter in every Hungarian game, Loïc Négo (204 minutes) and Gergő Lovrencsics (97 mins) substituted each other on the right wing during the three matches. Of the others, only Nemanja Nikolić (66 minutes; substituted twice) was given a longer role. Tamás Cseri (14 minutes), Dávid Sigér (12 minutes) and Roland Varga (2 minutes) had just episodic tasks.

Two of the five players from NB I, Slovakian Róbert Mak (Ferencváros, 233 mins) and North Macedonian Visar Musliu (MOL Fehérvár, 266 mins) played in every game of their team. However, Nikolai Alho (MTK, 20 mins) from Finland and Kire Ristevski (Újpest, 5 mins) from North Macedonia were given minimal opportunities. Then, Ukrainian player Oleksandr Zubkov's (Ferencváros) case is unfortunate because his head coach Shevchenko seemed to give him an important role, but he was replaced after 13 minutes due to an injury in his first match against the Netherlands.

The Hungarian topflight players became known for Fiola's unforgettable goal against the French, and an own goal by Mak as his shot bounced off of Polish goalkeeper Szczesny's back into the net. Similar performances were produced by those from the Ukrainian and Croatian leagues.

The Croatian topflight is distinguished from the region primarily because it had the best ratio of 11 players playing out of the 13 capped players in the tournament – only Hajduk's goalkeeper, Lovre Kalinić, and Osijek's defender, Mile Škorić didn't play. It's worth mentioning here that Mislav Oršić who played the second-fewest minutes of 53 minutes also made a spectacular appearance. With the Dinamo Zagreb winger's goal and assist, Croatia equalized from 1–3 against Spain in just seven minutes. The majority of Euro 2020 participants from the Croatian league were from just one club, the internationally also successful Dinamo Zagreb (8).

Similar to NB I, the Croatian topflight has given players for five countries, including two western European national teams. Mario Garvanović (Din. Zagreb, 150 minutes in 5 Euro 2020 games), a Swiss national team substitute and a Croatian club's player of 5 years (because of his origins), scored in the final minute of the eight finals against France and earned extra time. Dylan Levitt (Istra) of Wales is on loan to Croatia from Manchester United. The 20-year-old midfielder was given just under three minutes at the European Championship.

In addition to László Kleinheisler (NK Osijek, 251 mins), a starter in every match for Hungary, the Croatian league added two key players (Dominik Livakovic 390, Josko Gvardiol 370 mins) and two regularly substituted attackers (Bruno Petkovic 173, Luka Ivanusec 66 mins) to its national team. Also, Prva HNL gave three permanent starters for North Macedonia (Stefan Ristovski 270, Darko Velkovski 265, Arijan Ademi 256 mins).

The Ukrainian topflight provided the most players (19) for the European Championship from the region. With one exception, all of them were in their national team. Poland's Tomasz Kędziora (Dynamo Kyiv) wasn't given the opportunity, so weren't five Ukrainian players (Anatoliy Trubin, Andriy Pyatov, Denys Popov, Oleksandr Timchik, Heorhiy Sudakov) – although Shevchenko had the intention of letting the latter two play for a few symbolic minutes, referee Felix Brych ended the quarterfinal against England without an added time before they could join.

Despite the Ukrainian national team was made up of two top domestic clubs, Dynamo Kyiv (10 players) and Shakhtar Donetsk (7), the team's effectiveness depended almost entirely on those playing abroad. Out of the six goals, perhaps the most important one was scored by footballer Artem Dobvyk who plays for a Ukrainian club, and only one assist was made by a player (Oleksandr Karavayev) from Premjer Liha. In addition to Karavayev, two other players from Kyiv, Heorhiy Bushchan and Illya Zabarnyi spent all 480 minutes their team played on the pitch making them the players who played the most at the European Championship among the footballers of the neighboring leagues.

András Schäfer (DAC) stood out in all respects among the four players representing the Slovakian league: he was a starter in all three games of the Hungarian national team and crowned his 232 minutes of playing with a headed goal against the Germans. The others, however, were substitutes who were replaced by their coaches at the end of the matches. Slovakian Vladimir Weiss (Slovan) was given 34 minutes in two meetings, North Macedonian player Tihomir Kostadinov (Ruzomberok) played 48 minutes in two matches while his compatriot Milan Ristovski (Spartak Trnava) was given only four minutes against the Austrians.

Salzburg or not, the Austrian national team is based almost exclusively on players abroad, so the Austrian Bundesliga only added two players to the tournament, of whom Alexander Schlager (LASK, goalkeeper) didn't play. Andreas Ulmer (Salzburg) played through the first two group games, but he watched the match against the Ukrainians and the Italians from the bench.

No player from the Romanian and Slovenian topflight participated at the European Championship. The only player representing the Serbian league was Filip Holender (Partizan) who was on the Hungarian bench for two games, but he didn't play even once.

Translated by Vanda Orosz