"I will be thankful to Hungary until the end of my life"

Hungary's Italian coach discusses his adopted home, rejection in his birth country, and a possible future in England

- Macro Rossi & Vladimir Novak

Before you became Honved’s head coach in 2012, you coached some small Italian clubs. How did the Hungarians find you?

It happened almost by coincidence. It was a quite lucky situation. I visited a friend of mine, who has a restaurant in Budapest. At that time, I was without a club. He said to me: “Why don’t you call Fabio Cordella, the sports director of Honved?” I’d never called anyone to ask for a job before. I don’t like to offer myself. I’m not born in that way.

However, both my friend and my wife spent the whole day suggesting that I should call him. Eventually I was so exhausted by the whole thing that, in the end, I called him. We met, had dinner, he spoke with George Hemingway [Honved chairman], and so I began working at Honved.

In the first year, we finished third, which was Honved’s best result since winning the league title in 1993. Afterwards the team was rebuilt, we played with many young players, including Under-19s, but we had a decent campaign and finished in mid-table. Then I resigned, they changed coaches, and then in February 2015 they called me to come back. Honved were in the relegation battle, but we managed to stay up. In 2015-16, we finished eighth and in the next season, we won the league title. It was like a miracle, as we had a much lower budget than other clubs.

We all know the cliché that Italians are masters of the defensive game; what is your football philosophy?