In 2004 Hungary joined the European Union. Sixteen years later its National football team managed to qualify for the second time for the UEFA European Championship, drawing the spotlight of the whole world back on the Nation. However, this time the team is not led by a Hungarian but by an Italian coach, Marco Rossi who has not always been a national “hero” loved by fans, players and politicians. For the first fifty years of his life, Marco was a professional who had to fight to stay in the football world, first as a player and then as a coach. A companion and father who had to make sacrifices together
with his family that has always been supportive.
Now that he finally has the eyes of the world on him, the
dream of a lifetime comes true: he has been offered to coach
a Premier League team. But the Nations League is
approaching and the Hungarian national team needs its coach
one last time.
Marco’s story is the story of a man who has become a hero in a totally unconventional way. A professional who had to recover from numerous defeats before feeling like a “child at the amusement park”, as he himself tells us in an interview. Here we are not telling a success story, or the rise of an athlete whose greatness was recognized at an early age, but the story of a man who, despite many failures, with sweat, fatigue and sacrifice persevered to achieve his goals, and now that he’s finally got what he’s always worked for, he has to make a choice of humanity. His story, in fact, inexorably interwined with that of Hungary from the moment he chose to dedicate his career to this country. His history and that of the Hungarian football culture, have been running side by side: both have managed to recover from a condition of defeat and distrust to earn dignity and respect in the eyes of the world. The aim of the documentary is to tell how football and sport are fundamental for the rebirth of a country. This is why the figure of Marco Rossi, with his determination and hs commitment, is the mirror of Hungarian values and contradictions, taking into consideration the political function that football has acquired in recent years.
Alessio Avino (Archive Producer)
Marco Rossi, Cosimo Inguscio, Matyas Molnar, Andras Gal