One point enough to reach Euro 2024 but Hungary will be playing to win in Sofia

Wednesday morning had seen Rossi lead a training session on the centre pitch of their training centre in Telki before the delegation travelled to Bulgaria, the first task being to hold a press conference about Thursday's match at the Vaszil Levszki Stadium, the venue of Thursday evening's Euro 2024 qualifier in Sofia.

"In the past few days, there was a lot of news about the match (whether or not it would be played behind closed doors or even be played at all), but I myself tried to ignore any unsettling distractions and focused only on properly preparing the team for the match," Rossi confirmed at the press event.

"The Bulgarian national team is a better team than the standings indicate; they may only have scored two points from their matches so far, but based on how those games went, they could have added three or four more points to their name, but several of those matches finished poorly for them. It's difficult to say what tactics our opponent will choose - we've tried to identify the playing style of their new national coach's previous team and, based on this, we've prepared for several possible scenarios. I've said before that no team can prepare themselves to play for a draw in a match. This time we'll be playing for a win, but if we qualify for the European Championship tomorrow only by virtue of a draw, I won't be sad either," Rossi concluded.

Left-sided player Milos Kerkez also took part alongside his national-team coach and confirmed the whole squad had tried to detach itself from the events related to the organisation of the match and focused exclusively on preparing for the game as best as possible. In response to a journalist's question, he said that the stadium's pitch is not perfect but it's playable, so all the necessary circumstances will be in place for the team to achieve its goal and win the match. "We know that many fans have come to Sofia even though the game will be played behind closed doors and of course we're very happy to receive so much support from the fans. We want to win for them as well tomorrow", Kerkez confirmed.

Poland's Daniel Stefanski will officiate the European Championship qualifying match between Bulgaria and Hungary which kicks off at 18:00 CET. His assistants will be David Glois and Michal Obukowicz, while the fourth official will be Wojciech Myc. Piotr Lasyk will assist from the VAR room.

The Bulgaria national squad:

Goalkeepers: Daniel Naumov (CSKA 1948), Ivan Gulgerov (Cherno More), Dimitar Mitov (St. Johnstone)
Defenders: Viktor Popov (Cherno More), Ivan Turicov (CSKA Sofia), Valentin Antov (Cremonese), Alex Petkov (Slask), Simeon Petrov (CSKA 1948), Kristian Dimitrov (Levski Sofia), Zhivko Atanasov (Cherno More), Anton Nedalkov (Ludogorets), Angel Liashkov (Lokomotiv Plovdiv)
Midfielders: Ilia Gruev (Leeds United), Ivaylo Chochev (CSKA 1948), Andrian Krajev (Levski Sofia), Filip Krastev (Los Angeles FC), Hristo Ivanov (Lokomotiv Plovdiv), Svetoslav Kovacsev (Ahmat Grozny), Stanislav Ivanov (Arda) , Dominik Jankov (Ludogorets), Ilian Iliev (AE Kifissias)