Turkey completed a comprehensive Nations League play-off victory over Huungry on Sunday evening, as their 3-0 win at the Puskas Arena in Budapest secured a 6-1 aggregate win.
The victory means the Turks secured promotion to the Nations League A, but the match featured a number of flashpoints, with seven yellow cards being handed out – although the most eye-catching incident came after the final whistle.
Liverpool midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai captained Hungary as he won his 53rd cap for his country, but was unable to prevent the comprehensive defeat, as Hakan Calhanoglu, Abdulkerim Bardakci and Arda Guler all found the back of the net.
Real Madrid’s Arda Guler and Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai clash during and after Nations League play-off
Real Madrid star Guler, who turned 20 last month Guler and was ranked at no.2 in FourFourTwo’s list of the most exciting teenagers in the world last year, was clearly enjoying the victory and at one point went to make a ‘shushing’ gesture to Szoboszlai, after the pair argued about a decision late in the game.
The pot was then stirred after the game, as Hungarian outlet Nemzetisport posted a picture on Instagram of the incident, which they captioned: ‘Arda Guler told Dominik Szoboszlai to be quiet’.
Szoboszlai was clearly paying attention as he soon left a cryptic comment in the replies, which led to fans scrambling to work out what it meant.
This didn’t take long, as these eagle-eyed supporters quickly cracked the code that Szoboszlai had laid out when he simply posted ‘1088’’.
That’s because the Hungary skipper’s numeric message appears to be a reference to the number of minutes that Guler has played for Real Madrid this season – with his 1,088 minutes on the pitch an indication of the youngster’s battle to get regular playing time at the Bernabeu.
That number, which has come across 30 games this term, is well behind the 2,887 minutes that Szoboszlai has played for the Premier League leaders, with the Hungarian having featured in all but six of the Reds’ 46 games across all competitions so far.
Szoboszlai is enjoying an excellent season for Liverpool as the 24-year-old – who is valued at €80million by Transfermarkt, almost double Guler’s €45million value – and appears to be hitting his peak years.
Guler, meanwhile, still has time on his side to break into his first team, with his national team-mate Calhanoglou recently calling for him to play more minutes for Madrid. “I don’t know what his situation is at Real Madrid, so I don’t want to get too involved in this situation because in the end, he knows more, although of course, I want and believe he deserves to play more minutes,” he said.
Given Liverpool and Real Madrid’s place at the top of the European game, we dare say the pair should have plenty more meetings in the coming years, so this personal rivalry is one to watch.
