Attila Fiola: We need to keep the ball more

Wednesday began with bad news when it emerged midfielder Dániel Gazdag hadn't recovered from an injury despite the best efforts of the player and medical staff, so the Philadelphia Union midfielder has left the squad and returned to his club.

However, in the afternoon, Dénes Dibusz and Attila Fiola fielded questions from journalists at Telki, the team's media centre. Reserve national-team goalkeeper Dénes Dibusz was first asked about the performance of the keeper ahead of him, Péter Gulácsi:

“Gula’s performance is very easy to evaluate now, as he’s great defensively and produced what he needed to against such an opponent. Without an outstanding goalkeeper, there is no chance of keeping the scoreline at 0-0. He received praise from us at half-time and after the match, then later we talked more and more about the game. There was more time today to discuss things; I think he did his job perfectly and there was nothing he could do about the goals, so we rather talked about team performance and what could be further improved in our game".

Turning the conversation to the next opponent, the Ferencváros No 1 said they'd also talked in his club about what it was like to play football against Dembélé in the Champions League and then what Mbappé showed in the match between Barcelona and PSG.

“I don’t think you need to introduce this team to anyone; you can see at every point what level they represent. Obviously, you don’t have to compete with them individually, but you have to make things harder for them as a team and take advantage of the opportunities on offer. I'm confident we can learn a lot from the Portugal game and bring some joy to the fans".

Of course, in addition to the players, the performance of the fans yesterday was also a topic of discussion, and both Dibusz and Fiola confirmed it had been an uplifting feeling to feel the huge support in the Puskás Arena.

"As we approached the stadium we were greeted by tens of thousands of fans, and even then they created an atmosphere which we could last experience perhaps only in 2016. That gave the team tremendous strength throughout as they were constantly encouraged during the match. I think the team did their best and put all their energy into it, and that was evident in the tribunes too. It was mentioned how they even celebrated after the defeat and the fans reassured us through their support" admitted Dibusz, who also stated their team had already got over the defeat, even though they'd very much wanted to continue their long unbeaten run: "We never blame each other; we win and lose together." Our unbeaten run is over but we'll move on as a team".

Attila Fiola expanded on this, admitting he'd had a very difficult night after the match, because as a defender it is his job to keep the Hungarian goal from being breached, but he's still getting goosebumps from the encouragement of the fans.

"It was phenomenal to play at home. In 2016, the fans created such an atmosphere that I thought there would never be another occasion like this, but yesterday’s support surpassed that. The fans was amazing and it was probably because of them we were able to keep 0-0 as long as we did".

As for the lessons of the match, Fiola says we need to improve in possession of the ball:

“We need to have more of the ball because these opponents will eventually grind down a team and their defence. We last played against Portugal four years ago; then I marked Ronaldo and this time Bernardo Silva was on my side of the pitch. We have a very hard time against players like this, but we battled well, which is why this result is so frustrating". The MOL Fehérvár defender added that he is looking forward to Saturday's match against France so that he can relive the way tens of thousands of people support the team on the pitch.