Squid, Zholt

Career start

In 2005, Kalmar entered the youth academy of the Gyor football club, where he went through a number of age groups. Starting from the 2012/13 season , at the age of 17, he began to play for the youth team. On October 8, 2012, he was invited to a one-month internship at Rotterdam 's Feyenoord ^[1] . Zholt himself noted in an interview that he would do everything possible to make his dream come true to try his strength abroad ^[2] .

On October 13, 2012, he first appeared in the line-up for the match of the double “Gyor”, who at that time played in the second-strongest championship of Hungary . On March 3, 2013 he made his debut in this league in a guest match against Zalaegerszeg , which ended in a 1-0 victory for the hosts ^[3] . He scored his first goal in his professional career on April 20, 2013 in the first minute of the match with the Chakwar club, which ended in a draw 3: 3 ^[4] . In total for the 2012/13 season, Zholt played 7 matches and scored 1 goal.

Gyor

By the decision of the coach of the main team of Gyor Attila Pinter, Kalmar was transferred to the main team in May 2013, where he received the thirteenth number ^[5] . The first match in the Hungarian championship Zholt played against the Honveda , appearing on the field in the starting lineup ^[6] . In the final game of the 2012/13 championship, he scored his first goal in the top division against the Egri club ^[7] .

In the 2013/14 Hungarian Championship, Zsolt was already a regular player in the team’s main line-up, however, he scored his first goal of the season in the Hungarian Super Cup match at the Ferenc Puskas Stadium against Debrecen , replacing him in the 83rd minute ^[8] . In December 2013, the possibility of buying Squid by the Heerenvein club was discussed, but Gyor did not want to part with the player at that time ^[9] . At the end of the season, Zsolt was awarded the Hungarian Football Federation with the “Discovery of the Year” prize ^[10] .

RB Leipzig

To strengthen RB Leipzig , who entered the second Bundesliga , the club’s sports director Ralph Rangnik personally assessed the match between Hungary and Kazakhstan on June 8, 2014 to assess Kalmar’s potential ^[11] . At the same time, the Greek Olympiacos was interested in acquiring the player ^[12] . Zholt himself decided to continue his career in Germany and signed on July 28, 2014 a five-year contract with RB Leipzig ^[13] .

Ralph Rangnik praised this acquisition as follows: “Zsolt Kalmar is one of the greatest Hungarian talents, his qualifications fully correspond to our level. He is a young player with great potential, and despite his young age, he already has enough experience, he assumes responsibility, which is noticeable if only because he is the captain of the youth team of Hungary . We are certainly glad that Zholt, in spite of other proposals, chose us ” ^[14] .

On August 22, he spent his first match in the second Bundesliga , replacing Josua Kimmich in the 79th minute in a match against Erzgebirge Aue ^[15] .

For the youth national team of Hungary (under 19 years old), Squid played three matches at the home European youth championship in 2014 , where the Hungarian team took third place in their group after the teams of Austria and Portugal .

In the main national team of Hungary, Kalmar made his debut at the age of 18 in a friendly match against the Danish team , which was held on May 22, 2014 and ended in a draw 2: 2 ^[16] . For Zholt, the first official match was a guest meeting with the Faroe Islands team as part of the 2016 European Championship qualifying tournament ^[17] .