Rossi expects improvements against Republic of Ireland

The Hungarian men's national team is preparing for its final warm-up match before the European Championship, when on Tuesday evening Marco Rossi's men will measure their progress against Republic of Ireland at the Ferenc Szusza Stadium in Újpest.

At a press conference ahead of Tuesday's friendly fixture, head coach Marco Rossi said he was optimistic about the match, in which he expected a better performance from his team than he had seen against Cyprus last week.

"We await the match with great motivation, and we need to see this on the pitch too, beause many times it is the level of motivation that decides matches," Rossi told the press. "It's important to get a good result, but for that to happen we have to play better than in the previous match (against Cyprus). We need to move forward tactically, both in attack and defence.

Although there are similarities in some aspects of their game, the Repubic of Ireland and Portugal national teams are difficult to compare. We had problems in the match against Cyprus, but I know the cause of those problems and we'll be looking to eliminate them in Tuesday’s match. I expect to see an improved performance against Ireland.

Here, I'll be counting on players who missed the match against Cyprus or came on as substitutes, so the starting team will be very similar to the one that might start against Portugal. However, we can’t count on Roland Sallai for now, as he's still complaining of muscle soreness and I don’t want to risk him".

Meanwhile, Hungary striker Nemanja Nikolic commented that: "We had a good team in 2016 too, but the current national squad is both tactically and team-wise superior to its predecessor of five years ago.

The Republic of Ireland team is stronger than Cyprus so for us, the European Championship started before the match against Cyprus and tomorrow's match is just as important as the match against Portugal. A strong opponent awaits us, whose players all represent good clubs. They play English-style football, are very tough and they like to fight for the ball.

Our European Championship group opponents will certainly try to dominate us, while the Irish will play a different way, but we can still try a few things which will be useful in the group stages", Nikolic confirmed.

Following Monday's press conference, Marco Rossi held a training session with his players, which Roland Sallai missed in order to do some specific individual work. However, shortly after the start of the session in Telki, a downpour of torrential rain began, which mean the session had to be abandoned.

THE BASIC VALUES OF SPORT

The basic values ​​of sport are equal opportunities, respect for teammates and opponents. Football may have become the most popular sport in the world precisely because it belongs to everyone. The Hungarian national team not only follows the international rules and norms in every case, but also respects everyone, be they an opponent, a fan or anyone else. MLSZ has been fighting all forms of hatred and discrimination for years as part of its 'Hate is not OK' campaign. The rules of UEFA and FIFA do not allow politicisation on the pitch or in the stadium, values which the MLSZ not only accepts but also agrees with. The national team will not take the knee before matches to express its condemnation of any form of hatred, but will instead find other ways.