Marco Rossi: I would never have dared to dream of this!

– March 24th?
– That day, we took over the pitch for the first time this year! – said Marco Rossi. – Although we lost one-nil, we didn't play a bad game against Serbia. I have all the important moments of the game in front of me, we were worthy opponents for the Serbs who qualified for the World Cup, but VAR wasn't on our side... We did most of what we had planned, we played better defense and we had more possession than before - so it was a good start this year.

– Belfast?
– Five days later, in Northern Ireland, we picked up where we left off against Serbia. Apart from the last ten to fifteen minutes, we played well and deserved to win by one goal. There was also some confusion at the end because I used all our substitution opportunities – this is something that I always try to do when we play a preparation match.

In the second half, the Northern Irish were volleying non-stop, and we suffered because of it. On the one hand, though, we didn’t concede goals and on the other hand, we learned from it. What we experienced in that 15 minutes has been of great use to us ever since.

– June 4th?
– In the first group game of the Nations League, we won one-nil against England, which was a great achievement! It was thrilling to play in front of 35,000 kids in the Puskás Aréna. We delighted the kids with our performance and the win, it was great to celebrate with them. When you face teams like England, Germany, or Italy, you have to expect defeat. However, we beat England twice! But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, there were other things that happened before Wolverhampton...

– Cesena?
– The least I liked was the first half of the game against Italy. In those forty-five minutes, the home side caused us a lot of problems, especially on the wing, and it's no wonder we were two goals down. After the break, we improved and even had a chance to equalize.

Overall, we suffered a respectable defeat. As for the emotions, it was obviously a special day for me because it was the first time, I had led my team against my home country, Italy. It's rare for a head coach to sing both anthems before the kickoff... I was emotional then too, but something happened in September that surpassed even those moments – but more on that later.

– Germany?
– It was our third match (the best ever) in a week. There was a unique atmosphere in the Puskás Aréna, and we took the lead at the beginning. The Germans quickly equalized, but in the rest of the game, we didn't fight to draw, we wanted to win! We were not far away from it. In the end, we had to settle for one point only, but we took consolation from the fact that we played an almost perfect match from a professional point of view. We have met Germany three times in the last year and a half, and I liked this clash the best.

– Molineux Stadium?
– The miracle in Wolverhampton… June 14, 2022 – the day that the players, the staff, and the fans will remember forever. I didn't think we could top our performance against Germany three days earlier, thank goodness I was wrong. Not many people thought we would beat England again away from home, and nobody thought we would beat them four-nil.

We couldn't believe our eyes. The icing on the cake was the celebration with the fans after the final whistle. The truth is that there are few fans in the world like the Hungarian fans; it's an honor to play in front of them. I needed a day or two to process what we had achieved in Wolverhampton. We achieved a historic triumph, and I only wish Hungarian football similar success in the future - with or without me.

– September 23rd?
– We were leading our group after the fourth day of the tournament, but we traveled to Leipzig with the intention of securing our place in League A. In the last two rounds, we could have been eliminated, and we wanted to avoid that at all costs. Thanks to Ádám Szalai's dazzling goal, we did it, and many people were cheering our new victory. I was happy too, but not entirely because our second-half performance wasn’t what I had expected. However, we achieved what we set out to do and I had another reason to be happy: that match was the forty-sixth time I had been on the national team bench, and it made me rank fourth in the all-time rankings.

Now I'm at forty-nine, and next March, in the preparation match against Estonia, I'll be in charge of Hungary's national team for the 50th time. I would never have dared to dream of this! It is impossible to catch up with Lajos Baróti, who is at the top of the ranking, but I believe Kálmán Mészöly – God rest his soul! – is twelve while Gusztáv Sebes is twenty games ahead of me. If I stay at the helm of the national team for another two years, I could catch up with the coach of the legendary Golden Team. What that would mean to me, I can hardly talk about it...

– Italy?
– Even a draw would have been enough for the group win, but unfortunately, Italy defeated us again. But we only lost to them in the whole tournament. Based on how we played against them in Budapest, we would have deserved more, but Gianluigi Donnarumma proved that when a classy player has a good day, he is hard to beat.

When we really needed him, Fortuna parted with us, but that just shows what I keep saying: you can do everything to succeed, but if you are unlucky at the important moments, you may not achieve your goal. And what I said about the Cesena match: when the Hungarian fans started clapping during the Italian anthem, it was uncanny. I'll always cherish that feeling in my heart.

– November 20th?
– We couldn't have ended the year better than with a last-minute free kick goal from Zsolt Kalmár, who came on a minute earlier and who has returned to the national team after a serious injury! Balázs Dzsudzsák was also lucky enough to say goodbye to the national team jersey with a victory. He didn't get the farewell match as a gift, he earned it, because, for him, the national team always came first.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped me in any way this year. I am especially grateful to Zoltán Gera, the coach of the U21 national team, who really supports me in everything. To say the least, if a youngster excels under him, I'll invite him next time, which means Gera will keep losing his best players because the U21 team is the „front gate”; of the senior team.

I'm glad about that because the team didn't concede goals in their first three matches with the new age group. In the four years since I was appointed, we have practically renovated the senior team, replacing eighty percent of the squad. We have a young and talented squad - we can look forward to 2023 with modest but confident expectations.

– Christmas?
– Every year, my wife and I and our kids spend months planning where to go, and then we always end up in Pozzuoli. I add under my breath, though, that I don't mind being at home with my loved ones; it's already a happy holiday to be with them.

Translated by Vanda Orosz