Bernd Storck expects his team’s toughest match this year
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According to mlsz.hu, Hungary head coach Bernd Storck has given his thoughts to the media ahead of Tuesday’s opening 2018 World Cup qualifier away in the Faroe Islands:
“We’re facing this new challenge in front of us with great happiness but there will be no easy matches in our World Cup qualifying campaign. It will be a good deal harder to qualify for this than for the Euros because fewer teams can progress to the tournament finals. Our Euro 2016 matches can give us a boost as we approach the tasks in front of us and I’m confident we can have a successful campaign and hopefully at least secure second place and a play-off spot. This will be an extremely difficult task because the top team in Europe, Euro 2016 winners Portugal, will be one of our opponents, as will Switzerland who are also very strong.
A new generation steps into the national team now – the youngest such squad I will have worked with [in my current position], but amongst the squad’s uncapped players there are several whom I know well from the Under 21 setup and who have convinced the rest of the staff by virtue of their work in the last week. I am happy we can count on lots of youngsters to replace those who are injured. I think positively and trust our much-changed team will produce a good performance. The new players also know the full national team’s style of play and we’ll try to integrate them as soon as possible into the development cycle which we embarked upon before the Euros. We pay special attention to them in our training sessions and because they are intelligent enough to realise our expectations, I trust they will repay that faith with good performances.
The most important thing is the players’ physical condition. Last week we completed the latest tests which brought forth dramatic results. If we use these results as a base, we can clearly say it is no surprise that we have not qualified for major tournaments in the recent past. Before Euro 2016 we were able to get the players in such a good physical condition that they were able to turn out good results in France. The conditioning is the most important factor, without which it is not possible to compete at international level, and from which then comes the technical and tactical readiness [to be able to compete].