The two managers spoke to the media following Sunday's league match.
José Gomes: "Football at times can be an unfair game. The players need to be intelligent, to take this into account, and produce an even better performance. Sadly we made mistakes before both Honved goals. Their second goal for example saw them attack with two forwards, against our four defenders, yet they still managed to score. It is very important to talk about the game and mention, and this is not an excuse because of the result, that in Hungary there are very talented, young players, who play really well. We have to protect these players. It is important that there are the same criteria for all teams in the interests of protecting them. There were several fouls in the game, which Honved's players committed. However, the match official allowed these to go unpunished, but when we fouled, then he blew his whistle straight away, and the yellow card was produced a few times. Fouls are part of the game of football. If a team fouls as part of their tactics, then this needs to be stopped. Who can avoid all of this happening? The match official! He has a whistle and even a red card in his pocket. If a player commits a serious foul, and the referee shows him a yellow, then there is a good chance that the player will not foul in a similar way. However, if nothing happens, than what is to stop him fouling again? It would be important to make changes in this area. I am not thinking here about today's match official, but all of them. I would like to repeat once again that both their goals came from our errors, so we cannot blame anyone else for them."
Marco Rossi: "We knew that a difficult game was ahead of us, as we were visiting the home of the best team in Hungary. Videoton FC deserve to lead the league table, as their side has high quality in both defending and attacking. We prepared for today's game with strict tactics, and we knew that we could only pick up points at the Sostoi stadium, if we played with strong disciplined tactics for the whole of the 90 minutes. We made mistakes in the first half, and Vidi punished us with a goal, although we luckily managed to equalise shortly after. We played better football in the second half. Videoton FC dominated the game, but gave space to them on purpose. We did a lot for the win, and I feel that we worked for those 3 points.
Author: David Rechnitzer