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Rivera leaves Romania for Hungary

Published: Tuesday 27 August 2013, 10.57CET

Sito Rivera vowed to take Hungarian futsal forward after being appointed national coach following his departure from the same role in Romania with both nations preparing for play-offs.The experienced technician, who has coached clubs in his native Spain as well as Italy and Japan, has agreed a wide-ranking position in which he will also oversee the Hungary men's Under-21 and women's senior squads. His first job is to take charge of Hungary in their UEFA Futsal EURO 2014 play-off against Ukraine, while his former assistant Nelu Stancea has been appointed Romania caretaker as they face Serbia for a place in Antwerp.

"There are four things we must do to move the evolution of Hungarian futsal forward," Rivera said. "The national league must operate at a higher level than ever before; more and more children should take up the sport at a younger age, coach education of a sufficiently high standard is necessary; and naturally the work with the national teams must be prioritised.

"I think that the Hungarian national team can achieve much better results than have been achieved so far because of my experiences in countries with a very high standard. I don't just want to work with the national teams though, but rather to try to help the whole of Hungarian futsal. In futsal the right attitude is much more important than knowledge, and at least where I have worked, the mentality needed to be improved first and after that an improvement in results followed."

Hungarian Football Federation (MLSZ) general secretary Márton Vági added: "The process of introducing a new coach ends one era and starts a new one. Hungarian futsal should not be ashamed that today we can say we are not far from Europe's elite level and we must act now in order to become a permanent member at this level and regularly participate in the major global competitions.

"This will be a very difficult task but we trust this internationally-renowned coach with the work. It is important to note that the former coach Tamás Frank did as much with the available resources as possible in order to gain the best results for the team."

Hungary last appeared in a UEFA Futsal EURO final tournament as hosts in 2010, having qualified by right for the 2005 edition, though on both occasions they departed without a point. Rivera led Romania to the 2012 quarter-finals in Croatia.