Marco Rossi: Luck was needed to succeed

Our national team beat Bulgaria 3-1 in the European Championship qualifying play-off semi-final and now only need to win one match to be there at the UEFA European Championship next summer, a tournament which will be jointly hosted by Hungary. Head coach Marco Rossi spoke with mixed feelings after the victory:

"It's hard to describe how I feel right now. On the one hand, I am very happy because we have managed to move on (in the qualification process) and, of course, I am very happy with the victory. On the other hand, I’m not happy with the style of football we played during the match. Of course, it is not always possible to play well, but it should be honestly acknowledged that Bulgaria played better for some of the match today, and that we were lucky and thanks to that, we won. This is the first time since I’ve been head coach that we have achieved a good result with poor play, perhaps due to the boys fighting hard for success. We have skilful players and if we are able to stick to the tactics, anything can be achieved by our team. This time, however, we had difficulties and were unable to stick to what was agreed. There are a lot of new players in our squad, and many of those stepping onto the pitch today seemed to be affected by the pressure, so we stumbled a little under the burden. We need to understand why the game did not go well and we need to correct our mistakes for the next Nations League match against Serbia. The most important thing for us, of course, is the European Championship qualifying play-off final against Iceland in November, but we also want to do well in the Nations League".