Rossi: Confidence, team spirit and discipline are keys to success

Hungary started the autumn well in September and continued to improve in October and November. Rossi's team have remained unbeaten in their last six games, posting four wins and two draws against opponents, most of which were ranked higher than them. In the end, not only did they achieve their goal, European Championship qualification, but also won Division B of the Nations League, thus gaining promotion to Division A where they will compete with some of the best teams in Europe.

Marco Rossi gave a short assessment of his team's 2-0 match against Turkey:

"I watched the match in special circumstances as I watched what happened on the pitch on television and was in contact with my staff by phone," Rossi confirmed. "The fact that I was watching the picture with a delay of several seconds compared to the live events added to the curiosity of the situation, as I was hearing about certain events on the phone earlier than I would see with my own eyes. We were already heading for the group win during the first half of the match, but I only calmed down when I received the information on my phone that we'd scored our second goal. We can point to lots of positives in regard to the team after this outstandingly productive period. We were forced to line up with teams of different players in almost every match, so I would like to emphasise that everyone treated their teammate on the field as a partner, and we played with the requisite confidence, an excellent team spirit and extreme discipline".

Marco Rossi added that in order to be effective against teams with better abilities than us, it is absolutely essential to compensate for certain of our disadvantages by being better than our opponents physically and showing greater desire. According to the Italian coach, this has been observed throughout the matches and may be the most important conclusion the team can draw from for the forthcoming period.