Rossi takes risks, puts the national team on new foundations

“Many things happened that never happened before, that’s why I said this in an interview at a very difficult moment, that I didn’t enjoy a single minute of the European Championship. It took me a while to get things straight, but even now I haven’t finished the European Championship. We are preparing for important discussions with my players,” said Marco Rossi to the MOL Team.

After the conclusion of the European Championship, the captain asked us to be a little more patient, then he promised that he would be able to talk about the European Championship in a more collected way in August. Now is the time for this conversation, even before the Hungarian national team gets ready for the next serious task, the League of Nations.

Let’s start with the most important

“I’m not satisfied,” stated Rossi. “My goal was to advance from the group, and we failed to achieve that. I believed we could succeed and I know the whole team did too, and if the relegation had not been a disappointment in itself, the manner of it was also terribly painful.”

The opening match of the Hungarian national team brought the weakest first forty-five minutes of the Rossi era, although we played better in the second half, we could only cosmeticize a deserved defeat. We held our own against the Germans, but the home pitch and skill difference resulted in a defeat, and in the end we beat Scotland with a last-minute goal from Kevin Csoboth, so we could hope to progress as one of the top four runners-up.

“I have never experienced such a thing, to have to wait for days without our fate being in our hands, and it was completely nerve-wracking. The pursuit of the result itself would not have been the point in progressing, but the fact that I felt that Kevin’s goal could tip us over the streak of bad luck that typically plagued us throughout” – said the captain, who, speaking to M4 after the European Championship, said that the Hungarian national team had been lucky several times in the key moments before, but this turned around at the European Championship.

“We watched the English and the Portuguese, and all I could think of was that going through would free the players mentally, and I was sure that we could have played a very good match against any opponent in the direct elimination stage. Instead, we packed up and came home unfinished,” said the captain sadly.

The captain doesn’t understand everything yet

Although we could have progressed, it could have been due to other results, and so we could say that we were eliminated in the first half against the Swiss.

“If we do everything perfectly, Switzerland and Germany still beat me, I can make my peace with that. If, on the other hand, I feel that we could have done many things much better, I die a little. And now this is the case.”

“In the next period, I will sit together with the team, but I also want to talk to the players individually. I believe in honesty and I have a lot of important questions that I am waiting for answers to. If their answer is that I screw something up, I need to know that too.”I don’t have all the answers yet and I can’t rest until I understand what happened in the first half against Switzerland with my team.”

From a few dropped half-sentences, it was possible to conclude that the Swiss stood up in a slightly different formation than the Hungarians expected, which could have caused our team’s paralyzed play, but according to Rossi, the situation is not that simple.

“Aebischer was taken out with his left five position and Vargas switched places, we were absolutely prepared to deal with this, so much so that we easily resolved similar situations in recent years. It didn’t work now, even though everyone knew what they were doing.”

“I made only one change during the break (Ádám Lang was replaced by Bolla Bendegúz, but one line up, the defender’s place was taken by Attila Fiola on the right side), but the second half looked completely different. We were more aware, we played our own game better, but at the same time you could feel that luck was not on our side.“Centis offside, missed red (according to the captain, half an hour before the whistle, Widmer kicked Kerkez in the head, for which he should have received his second yellow), and then came (Orbán) Willi’s unfortunate mistake” – he referred to the Leipzig center back’s ball handling error, which he took advantage of Switzerland decided the match.

Not everyone behaved

In Rossi’s team, it has become common for several players to apply for the man of the match title at the same time, but there were few really good individual performances at the European Championships. Péter Gulácsi justified the captain’s decision and defended brilliantly throughout, but apart from him, only Roland Sallai can be fully praised.

“My players won’t be offended if I say: not everyone managed to approach their best. Since we can almost only meet a team that is better than us in terms of playing power at a European Championship, we will immediately be in serious trouble if our key players do not perform. Everyone knows that Dominik (Szoboszlai) can play much better than this, and Séfi (András Schäfer) only really showed what a good football player he is in the last game. And against Switzerland, Willi made more mistakes than before in the whole season.”

“Fortunately, the boys are much more critical of themselves, they also know exactly that if we don’t give our best, it’s not enough in such a strong field, and I’m sure that no one was hurt more by elimination than them.”

The captain said that he also thought about his own role many times, went through what he could have done differently, and also identified what he needed to change. And it will change.

“It happened before that I made an exception for the sake of individual players who played little in their club, but I have to draw a much stricter limit regarding playing minutes. This will already be felt in next week’s squad announcement, unfortunately I cannot invite those who are without a club or those who do not play in their team at all.”

Without feeling bad

The captain said that he was completely surprised by the opening match against Switzerland, because he always felt in advance what kind of match his team would play. He didn’t have any bad feelings now, although in retrospect, few things were really right during the lead-up to the European Championship.

“Unfortunately, several people had minor or major injuries, they could not train as we would have liked. At the 2021 European Championship, we also had serious absences, but we were able to work very well with those who were in the squad, the preparation went extremely well.”I can’t say that now, we didn’t do the work we planned.”

Rossi added that there are a host of things that he wants to handle as an internal matter for the team, but he mentioned a circumstance that he needs to change in the future. “It may seem like a small thing, but we need to pay more attention to keeping the players focused when we are together. You have to manage your free time better, the players can’t get bored.”

“But this is just a small thing, far from the most important thing. We will change a lot of things, but first I have to sit down with my players and discuss everything. A new period is coming in the life of the Hungarian national team.”

New bases: Atalanta is the model

Rossi is already preparing for the autumn matches with surprises, and will not only change the squad, but also the game of his team. The captain has used the elements of Atalanta’s game before, and now he is preparing to add new ones to his national team’s repertoire.

“I want to see the kind of attack that Atalanta does. I want to fight a lot and push each line higher: the attackers will attack high, and our defensive line will move forward by a good ten meters,” declared Rossi.

“We have to take risks – because there is no question that this is a risky step – we will definitely have difficult moments, but if we want to get the most out of our team, we can do it with this tactic. This is where our path is headed, we need to improve in everything, and the watchword is: more pressing, more balls won.”

“However, this highly risky but promising game requires everyone to feel the rhythm of the game, which is why I have to tighten the selection rule regarding playing minutes. Due to the way the game is played, every mistake is punished by an easy goal for the opponent, and we cannot allow that.”

“We have come a long way with the team, but I think we haven’t reached the end yet. We still have it, and I want to get that out of the team. It might have seemed like a dream in 2018, where we are now, and I want to keep dreaming.”