The match with Georgia ended with a positive result (1-1) for the Romanian football team. Ianis Hagi said that the role of captain of the national team is more important now that his father is a coach.
The first test match of Gică Hagi’s second term at the national team represented a way in which he could see more players and try out certain variations in the composition of the team. In the end, Ianis Hagi declared that the result does not make them very happy. “We are happy that we managed to apply, more or less, what we worked on this week. We have a lot of work to do with the requirements of the technical staff. When we managed to do what they asked of us from the sidelines, the opportunities came, we had control of the game through the two principles: possession and pressure.”
The captain of the tricolors admitted that not everything turned out as he wanted: “There were moments when we didn’t keep the rhythm. We have to work there. The demands are a little higher. We can understand, it’s fatigue, the end of the championship. Many changes, players who haven’t played together. All in all, I’m positive because we managed to apply what we worked on in training to the match, but we wanted to win,” Ianis told Antena Sport.
Asked if Gheorghe Hagi told him anything special before the match, the footballer who plays for Alanyaspor, in Turkey, specified: “No. The messages I already knew in the sea. To be me, to move a lot between the lines, to ask for a lot of balls in the offensive phase and to help the team a lot in the defensive phase. We worked a lot collectively in the last seven, ten days. A lot of information. We tried to capture and assimilate as much as possible from what he told us. There are things to improve, but overall we are satisfied, and the direction is good”.
Ianis Hagi: “The responsibility is double now that my father is a coach”
Ianis Hagi mentioned that when he wears the captain’s armband, he feels a greater responsibility, especially now that his father is the head coach of the national team: “The pressure is regardless of whether you wear the armband or not. You know how much the national team means to me. The responsibility is clearly greater, but I feel good. I feel that I am able to help the team. I am quite vocal on the field. Off the field, I like to lead by example, to try to bring others to my side. We are more leaders, more captains, players with international experience, and the technical staff has a lot of expectations, and we have to adapt the young ones, those who are catching up, as quickly as possible and get results. I don’t think age is important in the national team, performance matters”, concluded Ianis Hagi.
