He delivered a goal and an assist against Bournemouth, but that was not enough for anything for the Reds, keeping the trend in their sluggish season.

Alex Tóth made his debut for AFC Bournemouth on the home side. He came in in the 85th minute, when the score stood 2–2; thus he was on the pitch for his new teammate Amine Adli’s late winner. Milos Kerkez played 45 minutes for Liverpool, completing the ‘hat-trick’ of Hungarian players in the game. The final score: Bournemouth–Liverpool 3–2.

Tóth was the 13th Hungarian player to appear in the English Premier League, which is constantly ranked as the best domestic football competition in the world. Here is the full list of all his fellow countrymen to make it to that level.

István Kozma

Kozma was the first Hungarian to play in the Premier League. His official PL tally stands at just one game, which, evidently, is not all too impressive. That is a little misleading, given that he played five league games for Liverpool in the previous season.

However, that was in the 1991–1992 campaign, the last one under the Football League First Division brand. In the inaugural 1992–1993 Premier League season, Kozma played just one game.

Playing in midfield, he started his playing career at Újpesti Dózsa in Hungary, then signed with Dunfermline Athletic in the Scottish first division in 1989. That is where he caught the attention of Liverpool — Dominik Szoboszlai’s current club —, and made the transfer to the legendary club in 1991. However, his stint there is generally considered a flop.

Zoltán Gera

There was a full stop of Hungarian players coming to the Premier League over a decade after Kozma’s brief spell. In 2004, however, Hungary joined the European Union, thus footballers from the country received an exemption from the foreign player caps for clubs in the league.

Ferencváros’s stand-out talent Zoltán Gera was among the first three beneficiaries of that development. The midfielder joined West Bromwich Albion in 2004, and became a fan favourite by the end of the season. WBA won a hard-fought relegation battle, with a major contribution from Gera, who scored six goals that season. He spent four seasons with the Birmingham blue-and-whites, two in the Premier League and two in the second division Championship.

He returned to the highest level of English football after transferring to Fulham, where he also had a successful stint. In 2010, he even made it to the UEFA Europa League final with his new team, but lost to the Spanish side Atletico Madrid. In 2011, Gera returned to West Brom for three more seasons.

His overall Premier League tally is 172 games and 17 goals, the most among the Hungarian players in the league.

Gábor Király

Goalkeeper Gábor Király arrived at Crystal Palace in 2004 as a Hertha Berlin club legend, after spending seven fruitful seasons with the German Bundesliga club. Palace was on the other end of the relegation battle against Gera’s West Brom, and ended up not surviving their first season after promotion—certainly not an unusual occurrence for English teams.

Király, however, put on a great year-long performance on the individual level. It took a couple of games before he claimed his spot in the Palace goal, thus he ended the season with 32 games. While he was ‘forced’ to put on shorts in his first few games, eventually, he got to don his signature grey sweatpants as well, making a lasting impression with English football fans.

He ended up having the second-best save percentage in the league, only behind Petr Čech in the eventual champions Chelsea’s goal. Király also spent a brief loan spell with Aston Villa, adding five more PL games to his tally. Otherwise, the rest of his playing career was confined to the second division in English football.

Sándor Torghelle

He is the last of the — almost — trailblazer trio of Hungarian players who made it to the Premier League in 2004.

Torghelle’s signing was an abrupt one by the Crystal Palace leadership. They attended the international friendly between Germany and Hungary to scout their goalie prospect Király. However, Torghelle up front scored a brace for a 2–0 victory for the Hungarians in a major upset.

That quick call to buy the man of the match from MTK Budapest did not turn out too well for the London club, alas. Striker Torghelle lasted just one season in the squad, during which he played 12 Premier League games but scored no goals.

However, Torghelle has made a lasting impression with Hungarian football fans due to his fiery personality on the pitch. So much so that it even landed him a couple of reality show appearances in Hungary after his playing career.

Tamás Priskin

Priskin also made the massive jump from the Hungarian to the English first league. In 2006, Watford decided to sign him from Győri ETO. With the Hornets, he played for one season in the Premier League, making 16 appearances and scoring two goals as a striker. After relegation, he stayed for two more years with them in the Championship.

Priskin’s most memorable moment for Hungarian football fans, however, came years later. He scored the opener in the second leg of the play-off for the 2016 European Championship against Norway, making a major contribution to the national team’s route to their first major international competition in 30 years.

Márton Fülöp

Goalkeeping talent Márton Fülöp was scouted by the major Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur at age 21. He did not play any games at White Hart Lane, but managed to build himself a respectable career in English football.

He made his Premier League debut for Sunderland in 2008. He added 39 more appearances in the league for the Mackems in the next two seasons. During a short loan spell, he even played three league games in goal for Manchester City in the 2009–10 season, the team that ended up becoming a true powerhouse of European football in the coming years. He also played one more PL game for West Bromwich Albion in 2012.

Fülöp passed away tragically young, at age 32, due to cancer in 2015.

Péter Halmosi

The left winger/left wingback is a native of Szombathely, Hungary, and made his senior debut in the domestic first division with his local boyhood club Szombathelyi Haladás (just like Gábor Király). From there, his career path took him to Austria, then Hungarian champions Debrecen, before finding his way to England.

He first played for Plymouth Argyle in the second division. His transfer fee was £400,000, which was a record for the club at the time. In 2008, he stepped up in the English football pyramid, and was signed by the Premier League side Hull City.

In the 2008–09 season, he made 18 league appearances for his new club. Hull managed to stay up, finishing in the impressive 8th position, and Halmosi also stayed with the team. However, he did not get any playtime in the next season, thus his PL appearances remained at 18.

Péter Kurucz

Kurucz’s career is quite an enigma in Hungarian football that is hardly talked about. At age 21, the Premier League club West Ham United saw enough potential in the young keeper to not just sign him, but regularly put him in the matchday squad in the toughest league in the world. In December 2009, he even made his PL debut, coming in for the injured England international Robert Green against Manchester United.

The fact that his time at West Ham did not work out for him, and that one league appearance has remained his only one, is disappointing, but by no means extraordinary. However, even after returning to Hungary, Kurucz struggled to get any minutes between the posts in the first or even the second (!) division.

While he did suffer an ACL injury, he was able to recover and keep himself in relative health, but he still did not make any impact for his future clubs Siófok, Ferencváros, and Soroksár. He ended up retiring at just age 27.

Ákos Buzsáky

Ákos Buzsáky, a technically gifted midfielder, is the next among the one-season Premier League careers for Hungarian players. His time to shine in the top level of English football came in 2011, when his side Queens Park Rangers won promotion from the Championship. Buzsáky made his debut in professional football at MTK Budapest, and made his way to England through Portugal.

In that one season he got to play in the Premier League, he made 15 appearances and scored two goals for QPR.

Ádám Bogdán

Bogdán is another young goalkeeper signing. He caught the attention of Bolton Wanderers at age 20. He waited three years to get his first chance in the Premier League with the club, making a total of four appearances in the 2010–11 season.

The next campaign ended in relegation for Bolton. However, the performances Bogdán made across 20 league games were enough to be voted Player of the Season by the fans.

While in the second division, Bogdán made such an impression in an FA Cup tie against Liverpool that the legendary Reds decided to bring him to their team in the summer of 2015. He was originally intended to be the #2 choice behind the Belgian Simon Mignolet.

Sub-par performances by the first-choice keeper gave Bogdán an opportunity to grab himself the proverbial #1 jersey. Things did not go his way, however. A shaky debut for the Reds in a 3–0 loss to Watford sent him back on the bench.

He got one more game in in the last round against West Brom, but no more chances in the Premier League afterwards, thus his tally stopped at 26 appearances.

Dominik Szoboszlai

Now, we’ve got to the biggest Hungarian success story in Premier League history.

When Szoboszlai was bought by Liverpool—the third player from Hungary to represent the Reds — in the summer of 2023, it was already clear that he was on another level compared to our previous entries.

They paid the German Bundesliga side RB Leipzig €70 million to trigger his release clause, shattering all previous Hungarian transfer fee records. And it seems that the investment has already yielded considerable returns.

The Hungarian midfielder chose club legend Steven Gerrard’s #8 jersey, and was made a solid starter for the team by manager Jürgen Klopp from the get-go. In the 2024–2025 season (under Arne Slot’s management by then), Liverpool claimed the Premier League title, making Szoboszlai the first player from Hungary to get his hands on the coveted trophy.

He made 36 league appearances in the title-winning season, during which he scored 6 goals and gave 7 assists. This ongoing season is a disappointment for the Reds thus far, but Szoboszlai’s game is one of the few bright spots for sure.

His overall Premier League stats, as of the time of writing this, show 91 games and 12 goals for the Hungary national team captain—being just 25, he has plenty of time to collect more apps and goals, and, quite possibly, to overtake Zoltán Gera at the top of both all-time Premier League lists among Hungarian players.

Milos Kerkez

Kerkez arrived at the top level of English football at the same time as Szoboszlai, in the 2023 summer transfer window. AFC Bournemouth paid the Dutch club AZ Alkmaar €20.47 million for the Hungarian international left-back.

After two successful seasons with the Cherries, he was signed by Liverpool for more than double his original signing fee, €46.90 million. He now shares a dressing room with Szoboszlai, and is the fourth player from Hungary to put on the legendary red Liverpool shirt.

Thus far, Kerkez has made 88 Premier League appearances and scored three goals.

Alex Tóth

Evidently, he is the most recent signing on our list. Kerkez's former club Bournemouth just brought Tóth in from Hungarian champions Ferencváros for €12 million. That is an all-time record transfer fee for the Hungarian league.

It has been a while since a player made the big jump from the Hungarian to the English top league. The young midfielder has already passed the first major hurdle: he made his Premier League debut against defending champs Liverpool, the game we cited in the intro of this article.

Up next for Tóth and Bournemoth: last-placed Wolverhampton on the road this weekend.
 

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