Day before the Conference League for Puskas Akademia who will face Fiorentina tomorrow night in the second leg of the Conference League preliminaries. The Hungarian coach, Zsolt Hornyakspoke in the press conference: “We are not the favourites, we have only played one half of this playoff, tomorrow there will be the second. I must say that in the first leg we managed to do what we had set out to do. Our intention was to surprise Fiorentina by attacking high and in the first half we succeeded. If before the match they had said to me “will you sign for a 3-3?”, I would have definitely signed. However, having gone ahead by two goals and seeing the final result there was certainly a bit of bitterness. We want to give our best, it was seen that with good motivation we can score against Fiorentina, who are a strong and quality team”.
About tomorrow’s race: “In the post-match press conference I underlined that we managed to find Fiorentina’s weak point, underlining that perhaps we were slightly underestimated. Fiorentina has not yet got used to playing with 3 at the back and we took advantage of this. Perhaps I misinterpreted the fact that a player like Barak was not called up, probably his absence does not derive from the fact that Fiorentina underestimate us. I would like to highlight our attitude and the fact that we managed to find a weak point. We had the opportunity to make it 0-3 in the first leg, and it would have been tough for Fiorentina. Then at half-time we went down to the dressing rooms with the score at 1-2 and this affects the players’ minds. We will not try to defend ourselves tomorrow. We will attack and press, no catenaccio, trying to immediately direct the game in our favor”.
You are a young team…“Let’s not forget the five 17-year-old players we have in the squad. On the bench we have five players born in 2007. Our goalkeeper is 18. There is a big age difference between us and Fiorentina. We are one of the youngest teams in Europe and therefore age is certainly a factor. Tomorrow’s match will be more difficult, everything will be decided on a mental level once we step onto the pitch. We must not forget the quality of the Viola team. On the pitch, in terms of player valuation, they have 70 million. We must have the utmost respect for our opponent and do our best.”
On how he will approach the race: “Whatever system Fiorentina uses tomorrow night it will be a difficult match for us. They are very strong in terms of quality, but they are not yet the Fiorentina they should be. I will never play for a 0-0, I am not a defensive coach. I am in favor of attacking play, then obviously there is the tactics. We will try to recover as many balls as possible in Fiorentina’s half. I will never play with 5 defenders, unless circumstances force me to do so. Tomorrow too we will look for our opponents’ weak points. Fiorentina are also experimenting, going from 4 to 3 players at the back is not easy”.