Marco Rossi: You can never let your attitude slip

Hungary take on San Marino in their second FIFA 2022 World Cup qualifier on Sunday, having posted a 3-3 draw against Polandin their first fixture, while their opponents are coming off the back of a 5-0 defeat to England. Today's hosts are the group's sixth seeds and will be our lowest ranked opponent this year, so Rossi has repeatedly stressed that only victory will be an acceptable result.

The Hungarian national team continued to prepare in Telki following Thursday's match, and only travelled to the match venue on Saturday afternoon.

Prior to that, Rossi held an official training at the national team’s training centre's and attended a press conference prior to the game. As for news related to the team, András Schäfer suffered a knee injury during training and has had to leave the training camp, with no one called up to replace him. According to a prior agreement between the national team and the club RB Leipzig, goalkeeper Péter Gulácsi has returned to his German club, so Dénes Dibusz will play in goal in San Marino.

“We are aware of how we should approach this match and I'm confident that we will be able to win,” Rossi said at the press conference. "The match against Poland required a certain kind of attitude, but the next two matches will require a completely different approach. The home team will almost certainly defend deeply and close the space in front of us. Our attitude will be extremely important because mistakes are permissible, but a slack attitude never is. It is not the system which counts in this match; only with the right attitude can we achieve the expected result".

Rossi was actually a player under the San Marino coach when Franco Varella was coach of Brescia and the two have maintained a great relationship with each other ever since:

"I have met San Marino coach Franco Varella several times since he was my coach at Brescia. We have an excellent relationship and have met several times in recent years, when we had the opportunity. We are talking about a professionally and tactically astute professional. He will do his best to try to make our lives harder. However, football players play on the pitch and coaches have limited influence over what happens during the game".

Central midfielder Ádám Nagy, who also attended the press conference, expects a confident victory on Sunday and for the team to continue the journey it has begun in recent months: "After the Poland match we were a bit disappointed as we prefer to see the cup half empty, but we can build on the performance and now must start collecting three points in each of the next two qualifiers. We respect our opponents, but I think we need to win the next matches with a confident, dominant possession game. We need to notice the possibilities once we're in a position to take advantage of the opponent’s defensive mistakes. It is important to continue the journey we have started, to develop from level to level,and strengthen the national team. In the matches where we're the favourites, we should be able to win comprehensively andput on good displays", the Bristol City player concluded.