Sallai: It's only worth counting our points after the Scotland game
Hungary will finish the group stage of the 2024 UEFA European Championship with a match against Scotland in Stuttgart on Sunday evening. Currently pointless, Marco Rossi's squad knows that with a little bit of luck, three points could be enough to reach the round of 16. However, instead of speculating on the chances of progressing, the players are solely focused on earning the three points against Scotland.
The team's training on Friday morning was partly spent regenerating, but not every squad member ran on to the grass of the Weiler training pitch, the coaching staff keeping in mind that the players need to take to the pitch in perfect physical condition on Sunday. Roland Sallai and Dániel Gazdag arrived at the national team's media centre for the afternoon press conference and both emphasised it's only worth starting to think about the chances of advancing to the knockout stages if we've won the last group match.
"First of all, we want to perform as well as possible against Scotland, because calculations and maths can only become relevant if we win the last group game, so until then it's completely unnecessary," said Sallai, who has started both group matches so far.
"We're playing against strong teams at the European Championship, so we have to use every situation, such as the opportunities we had in the first group matches. From now on, the most important thing is to score as many goals as possible from the chances we create. The team unity and atmosphere is still good and this helps to overcome the difficulties. An important match awaits us where really it doesn't matter if it's good or bad football; we just have to win. We know what to expect against Scotand, because our opponents on Sunday have outstanding players, but we have to focus on our own game. As for my own performance, I feel I was able to play freely in the first two matches, my moves usually worked and I feel in good shape, but it'll only be worth something if we win our third group match. We have to replicate the game against the Germans in our last group game. We have to play in a compact way and based on that, create goalscoring opportunities through quick transitions and score goals."
"We're of course disappointed by the results of the first two matches, but we have a third game waiting for us, which can still give us the opportunity to progress," added Gazdag, who came on as a substitute against Germany. "Scotland's playing style is completely different from the style of the Swiss and the Germans. They are physically strong, so it's difficult to play against them, and we'll of course have to take this into account, but we must start with a solid defence in the same way as we did against Germany. Both teams need three points, but we can't take excessive risks at the beginning of the match."