England-born Callum Styles Recalls Messages from Friends After Helping Hungary Stun Three Lions

Remembering his triumph over the Three Lions, the Barnsley midfielder is preparing for a meeting with Scotland at Euro 2024.

Two years ago, Callum Styles’ mates were shocked when he helped Hungary defeat England – the country of his birth, as a result of this he may end up facing Scotland during the 2024 Euro group matches. Being from the Greater Manchester region, this man aged 24 can play for Hungary because one of his grandparents was Hungarian meaning that on March 20 he made international games for the 20th time.

After making his debut at the start of 2022, the midfielder from Barnsley played for Hungary in another match that took place in Budapest, where his team defeated the English team 1-0; later on, they beat it 4-0 at Molineux in a game that shocked Gareth Southgate’s team.

“Friends couldn’t believe that I won.” Answer: “I couldn’t believe that my friends were saying that I beat them.”

Styles then contributed to Hungary’s victory in the Euro 2024 qualifying group whereas Serbia came second. “I can say that as a national team, we have made tremendous progress for the past couple of years”, he noted.

We had a great Nations League campaign and we guarded quite a good seeding for the qualifiers. I am very excited about the tournament since it’s thrilling and we aim to go as far as possible. “We are increasingly becoming stronger and the pressure keeps building. We cannot be content with simply taking part; the group stage has to be crossed since there is national pressure on us. At the same time, we put pressure on ourselves; because we know our ability.”

It has been confirmed that Styles cut Hungary’s 26-man squad that competes in the European Championship after playing poorly for Sunderland during the last season on loan from his parent club.

The midfielder had earlier featured for Barnsley in the second tier but had, on their relegation, had a loan spell at Millwall in the Championship. Coming back from the depths of League One with Barnsley FC for the first half of 2023-24, he appreciated Hungary’s national football team manager for keeping faith in him. A player does not change but only his situation changes. He had told me that. 

“He does like me a lot as a player, however he told me “You need to get back to playing at a higher level.” If I had stayed at Barnsley all year round, I don’t know if he could have picked me for March or the Euros. Anyway, I want to play at the highest level – I feel like I should be in the Championship or probably even higher. That’s why going to Sunderland in January was sort of giving something back to him.”