Hungary beats Sweden 2-1 in Euro qualifier

Published Sep. 2, 2011 11:32 p.m. ET

foxsports

A 90th minute strike by Gergely Rudolf earned Hungary a 2-1 victory over Sweden in their Euro 2012 qualifier in Group E on Friday.

Rudolf tapped home a pass from Tamas Priskin right in front of Sweden goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson.

The upset win was Hungary's first over Sweden since 1995.

''Naturally, we are very happy because we were finally able to defeat Sweden after a very long time,'' Hungary coach Sandor Egervari said.

The Netherlands is top of the group with 21 points, followed by Sweden and Hungary on 15 each. Hungary has played a game more.

Hungary's Tamas Hajnal squandered the home team's first scoring chance when his penalty in the 19th hit the crossbar.

A low shot by Sweden's Johan Elmander hit the left post in the 26th and his attempt off the rebound bounced over the bar.

Three minutes later, veteran Hungary goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly saved a shot by Kim Kallstrom which seemed to be heading into the right corner of the Hungarian goal.

Elmander had another great chance in the 42nd after stealing the ball from Vladimir Koman in midfield, but his low shot was just wide.

Hungary opened the scoring in the 44th, when Imre Szabics received a pinpoint pass from Rudolf and lifted the ball from 12 yards (meters) over Isaksson, who was late coming out.

Sweden equalized on the hour mark, when Johan Elmander took the ball into the penalty area, waited for the challenge from Kiraly and then provided a short pass for Christian Wilhemsson to steer the ball into an empty net.

''I won't say that we played without mistakes,'' Egervari said. ''But to score twice against such a strong team while missing a penalty shows the team's good performance on the attack.''

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Lineups:

Hungary: Gabor Kiraly, Zoltan Liptak (Gyorgy Sandor, 74), Zsolt Korcsmar, Jozsef Varga, Zsolt Lacko, Akos Elek, Adam Pinter, Gergely Rudolf, Imre Szabics (Tamas Priskin, 80), Tamas Hajnal (Zoltan Stieber, 66), Vladimir Koman.

Sweden: Andreas Isaakson, Mikael Lustig, Andreas Granqvist, Daniel Majstorovic, Sebastian Larsson (Ola Toivonen, 68), Anders Svensson (Rasmus Elm, 54), Kim Kallstrom (Pontus Wernblom, 88), Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Johan Elmander, Oscar Wendt, Christian Wilhelmsson.