Marco Rossi: You can’t constantly overperform

(We conducted a two-part interview with captain Marco Rossi, the first half of which focuses on his participation in the Nations League, and the second covers the entire year. We plan to publish the latter at the end of the year for this reason.)

“I hate getting knocked out. It is very difficult for me to experience every defeat, but there are things that I can make peace with after a while. However, there are also things that I cannot accept” – said the captain two days after the final match of the Nations League against the Germans, where Dominik Szoboszlai scored a brilliant point with a penalty goal scored before the whistle.

The series left behind brought good performances and results, but also devastating ones. The captain already gave his opinion on these during the trip (here in September, here in October), so now there is a retrospective in which we divided the lessons of the League of Nations into positive and negative parts.

Which we can be happy about

According to the paper, the Hungarians finished in third place in their group, they remained undefeated at home against the Germans and the Dutch, as a whole, we confidently took third place in the playoffs for Group A. In addition, we kept our place in the third hat before the draw for the World Cup qualifiers.

“Let’s start at the end: the Nations League is an extremely important series for us, and this is now also shown numerically. It is very important which hat we are drawn from tomorrow (the interview took place on Thursday)moreover, we still have the hope that we can even get to the World Cup playoffs from the NL, if we do not succeed in the qualifiers.”

“The result is always the most important thing, and we got to third place, we got points from the Netherlands and Germany, it would be hypocritical for me to say I’m not satisfied.“Whatever indicators, numbers, statistics we look at, we played with hugely superior teams as equal opponents, and that is a very big word. At the same time, it also shows how incredible strength the players derive from the support of our audience,” the captain praised the Hungarian camp.

The captain does not want to appear hypocritical (photo: MLSZ)

“Whoever gives a mediocre grade to the performance of the Hungarian team does not remember that a few years ago the team’s opponents were Faroe Islands and Estonia, and now we are fighting big with the best of the continent. Did they see the Germans after the blow-up? They were angry and disappointed because they wanted to win. But the Hungarian boys didn’t let him.”

Fresh air in the dressing room

Fortunately, among the positives, we also have to talk about the new faces appearing in the national team, we had a separate conversation with Tamas Nikitscher recently, but Zsombor Gruber, Kornél Szűcs, Levente Szabó and Dániel Gera also introduced themselves in the League of Nations. Who has been able to contribute more, who has contributed less, but the captain also sent them a message: he will invite whoever gives a well-balanced performance, no matter what team he plays for.

“There was a need for some fresh air in the dressing room, but the sharpening of the competition to get into the team is not a negligible aspect either.“Today we have reached a strong level in terms of the prestige of the national team, and whoever we invite comes to us hungry. This kind of momentum is not lacking in the dressing room, fortunately the team spirit and the will to win are strong, but new faces always bring new momentum,” explained Rossi.

Tamás Nikitscher broke into the national team (photo: MLSZ)

“I spoke to two young players separately, they couldn’t help but thank me for the invitation, they could see that they were bursting with joy. I said the same thing to both of them: you didn’t get it as a gift, I invited you because you performed like that, but you should know that you have to push your limits in the national team.”

Rossi has repeatedly pointed out the differences between the Hungarian players and the opponents, be it a physical, technical or a disadvantage arising from the strength of the club teams, and emphasized again: he can only accept when someone gives his all in the national team. And that’s why he misses the League of Nations.

They can’t break it up!

“In Germany, we were absolutely in the game until the second goal, and in Holland, despite the two penalties against us, we were dangerous, we should have taken the lead in the first half. However, we suffered ugly defeats in both games, and that doesn’t fit in with me. We can’t lose by 4-5 goals! These are not us!”

That hurt! (photo: MLSZ)

A very plausible explanation for the defeat in the Netherlands is that the concentration of the players was disrupted by the extremely frightening illness of their former teammate and captain, Ádám Szalai. The captain had previously expressed his opinion about the match in Germany, but now he only added:

“You can’t dominate against big teams, you have to accept that. They are faster, they fit better, so we only have a chance if we don’t let them develop, we stay organized and compact, and everyone performs close to the upper limit of their skills.”That’s right, it can’t be expected every week at the same time, unfortunately it has to be seen.”

Third place in the NL group is a realistic result, but overall, the Hungarian national team was only eleventh in the 16-team field. This is important because a team from the A division that does not finish in the first two places in the World Cup qualifiers gets a chance in the World Cup playoffs. This means twelve group winners and runners-up, i.e. each of the ten teams finishing ahead of us must finish among the top 24 in the World Cup qualifiers.

The two points lost against Bosnia are sorely missed (photo: MLSZ)

“Since we are talking about the A division, there is a pretty good chance that these teams will reach the first two places in the World Cup qualifiers. What can be worrying is Scotland, because they are only drawn from the third hat, and with their victory in Poland in the last round of the Nations League, they overtook us in the table.”

“Scotland has already been an important player in our lives once this year, and although we beat them, we got to know them as a very strong team.”In terms of the total value of their players, they are even better than us.” We diverted the talk from the Scots to Bosnia, as we had to win the home game against the Bosnians in order to be almost certain of our place in the World Cup playoffs from the NL.

This should have been brought and there would be no problem (photo: MLSZ)

“There are times when the little moments are with you, and there are times when they work against you. Bosnia wanted to counter us, but we didn’t give them a breath, we dominated the whole time, we squeezed them, but the “magic moment”. Earlier, when he came, I also said: the outcome of a match depends on these things, and you have to accept that sometimes luck helps your opponent”, – the captain recalled Rossi’s amazing performance of the Bosnian goalkeeper.

“Maybe that (…) match in Ireland! Everything changed there, when we conceded that damned goal in the 92nd minute,” Marco Rossi referred to our warm-up match before the European Championship. But more about this in the annual assessment.