Riccardo Ferri knows the head coach of the Hungarian national team very well personally, as he and he were teammates in the colors of Sampdoria in the 1994-1995 season in the Italian top flight. What’s more, they could even be rivals in the middle of the defense. Ferri was already a routine star at that time, before that he was a player for Inter for 13 years, with whom he was the Italian champion in 1989 and won the UEFA Cup twice.
Riccardo Ferri at US Sassuolo vs Inter on October 8, 2022. The former defender of the Italian national team is a fan of Marco Rossi. Photo: Europress/AFP/Gianluca Ricci
– I met Marco personally after my contract with Sampdoria, before that we only had mutual friends – he said Ferri in the March debut issue of the Hungarian edition of the World Soccer magazine. – He was a real professional, humble, dedicated player and person blessed with a great sense of humor. We often joked about the size of our heads: we said to each other, that’s why yours is bigger. It was a joke between two people who respected and liked each other.
45-time Italian national team member Ferri, a member of the 1990 World Cup bronze-medal team, described Rossi as a loyal comrade who had a great sense of belonging. “He ran a lot and played very generously, he was also a strong defender in the air,” Marco Rossi recalled.
Like Guardiola and Ancelotti?
Ferri drew an interesting parallel between the captain of the Hungarian national team and the two perhaps best-known head coaches in the world.
Marco Rossi has come a long way with the Hungarian national team. Photo: MTI/Tibor Illyés
– Great players like Pep Guardiola or Carlo Ancelotti, who were also excellent players, had no idea in their football years that they would be even better as coaches. Like them, we wouldn’t have thought this about Marco either – explained the Inter legend. – He worked and studied a lot during his career, and his results are probably due to his dedication and perseverance.
