The construction work is in progress, everything is being prepared and cleaned up for Tuesday evening (6 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship, on ZDF and on MagentaTV) when Hungary starts this European championship with a home game against Portugal.

Unlike in most of the host cities, there will also be public viewing areas in Budapest, and the national stadium can be fully utilized anyway.

That is also a specialty. However, the mood in the country is still not exuberant. Flags on the cars or apartments have so far only been seen sporadically, but that will be the case, believes Zsolt Petry, the former national goalkeeper who accompanied the preparation of the national team as a television expert from Budapest.

It is no coincidence that Hungary is the only nation that can hope for the support of a sold-out stadium.

The government likes to show itself as a loosener, vaccinated people are hardly affected by restrictions.

The Hungarians will also need the help of the public as a matter of urgency.

The December draw didn't mean well to them.

In Group F, defending champions Portugal, world champions France and Germany are waiting.

"It couldn't have been more difficult," says Petry.

Rossi is well received in Hungary

In this select group, Hungary is as blatant outsider as any team can be. However, this hardly dampens the expectations in the domestic media. “The enthusiasm is sometimes greater than the realistic view,” says Petry. The reason for this is the performance at the last European Championship, when Hungary even won its preliminary group and made it to the round of 16, in which, however, it came to an end against the highly rated Belgians. The trainer in 2016 was the German Bernd Storck, whose position has now been taken over by the Italian Marco Rossi.

Rossi is well received in Hungary because he does not pursue any tactical dogma and adjusts the alignment to the individual strengths of the players. The team shows itself defensively consolidated under his leadership, stands safe and skillfully narrows the spaces on the defensive. On the offensive, however, she had problems in qualifying. They should get even bigger now.

Hungary's most creative player, Dominik Szoboszlai from Leipzig, will miss the tournament due to a pubic bone inflammation. Because of the same injury, he has not played a game for RB Leipzig since his move last winter. So the chances of participating in the European Championship were already bad. Rossi tried anyway, invited Szoboszlai to prepare, but the health problems were ultimately too great. “He's in bad shape. I had to make the decision for the team, ”said Rossi.

The fact that the coach waited for the talented midfielder until the last moment shows his importance for the team. Szoboszlai shot Hungary with his goal against Iceland (2: 1) at the last moment for the European Championship, without him the team lacks the already manageable creativity. Above all, the Mainz attacker Adam Szalai misses his best template provider.

So even more will come to the good defense around the Leipzig duo Peter Gulacsi and Willi Orban. Both are among the few players who regularly play at the highest European level with their club. Otherwise, the squad consists of a few legionnaires and some who play at home in Hungary. Hungary does not have players who can decide a game like the number Germany, France and Portugal have in their ranks. That's one of the reasons they're one of the tournament's biggest outsiders.