Marco Rossi did not enjoy the European Championships.
After the group stage farewell of the Hungarian national football team, the national team captain would change a few things in the preparation for the European Championship, but he called them only small things.
"I didn't talk to anyone after Wednesday's matches, which sealed our fate. We had to wait for the results for three days. Anyone can beat anyone at this level if a team isn't at their best. That's why Georgia was able to surpass Portugal, or Slovenia was able to score a point against England," the Italian manager, who is also a Hungarian citizen, began his assessment at Thursday's press conference.
"Of course, we are disappointed because we scored one extra point compared to the previous continental competition, but we were eliminated in the group stage anyway".
According to the 59-year-old specialist, who was visibly broken, it is difficult for him to talk about the short- or long-term future, he needs to rest first to clear his head completely. As he put it, he did not enjoy the European Championships at all, which is primarily attributable to the bad start, because it was much more stressful for him than three years ago. He assessed as a positive that after the terrible first half of the opening match against the Swiss, the national team was able to stand up and perform better in the continuation.
"I hope that after forty years we will be able to fight for World Cup participation again, but everyone must understand that it is not possible to start so badly. Against such opponents at this level, you have to start well and finish the streak even better. But overall I don't want to criticize the players as they did their best. You have to see that several people did not come to the tournament in the best condition, this is one of the reasons why we did not advance," said Rossi.
According to the head coach's assessment, in order to qualify for the World Cup successfully, the national team must improve in several aspects of the game, but the most important thing will be for the football players to be in the game and in top form.
Rossi agreed that among the Hungarians, Roland Sallai, who was chosen as the best of the third group match, gave the best performance at the current European Championship.
he thinks the Freiburg forward is ripe to take a step forward in his career, but it's not up to him.
He played very well, he was our best player at the European Championship, but unfortunately that wasn't enough to advance either - said Rossi, who once again stated that the Hungarians owe their achievements so far mainly to teamwork.
Rossi called the blowout of the 1-0 win against the Scots the only happy moment, but even this happiness only lasted for a short time. When asked if he would change anything afterwards, he replied that he would not change anything, but due to the injuries of Nego Loic, Balogh Botond and Krisztofer Horváth, he could have changed the composition of the squad, but this did not affect the performance of the national team as a whole.
After the two-goal defeats suffered by the Swiss and the hosts, the Germans, the Hungarians defeated Scotland 1-0 with a goal scored by Kevin Csoboth in the 100th minute, thus ending the tournament with three points and a minus-three (2-5) goal difference.
They finished in fifth place, just behind the eighth finals, in the group third place table. Three years ago, Rossi's students were also eliminated in the group stage of the previous continental competition, when they finished fourth with two points behind France, Germany and Portugal.
The national team will next visit Germany in Düsseldorf on September 7 at the start of the fourth season of the Nations League.
MTI
Cover photo: national team captain Marco Rossi at the press conference of the Hungarian national team, which was eliminated from the European Football Championship in Germany, in Weiler-Simmerberg
Source: MTI/Tibor Illyés
