Cifuentes: A Proper Chance For Everyone

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Cifuentes: A Proper Chance For Everyone

New Manager Martí Cifuentes was pleased to get a sight of over 20 players in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Zalaegerszegi TE – his first friendly match in charge of Leicester City.

2025-07-20T05:00+01:00

Implementing his style.

by Sam Stevens

Published

20 Jul, 2025

Cifuentes: A Proper Chance For Everyone

New Manager Martí Cifuentes was pleased to get a sight of over 20 players in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Zalaegerszegi TE – his first friendly match in charge of Leicester City.

Sam Stevens

2025-07-20T05:00+01:00

Cifuentes: A Proper Chance For Everyone

New Manager Martí Cifuentes was pleased to get a sight of over 20 players in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Zalaegerszegi TE – his first friendly match in charge of Leicester City.

Sam Stevens

2025-07-20T05:00+01:00

Cifuentes: A Proper Chance For Everyone

New Manager Martí Cifuentes was pleased to get a sight of over 20 players in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Zalaegerszegi TE – his first friendly match in charge of Leicester City.

Sam Stevens

2025-07-20T05:00+01:00

Cifuentes: A Proper Chance For Everyone

New Manager Martí Cifuentes was pleased to get a sight of over 20 players in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Zalaegerszegi TE – his first friendly match in charge of Leicester City.

Sam Stevens

2025-07-20T05:00+01:00

Leicester City were 1-0 winners over Zalaegerszegi on Saturday
Jordan Ayew struck in the 70th minute to seal a first win under Martí Cifuentes
The Manager was pleased with the application of the players in the success
He also emphasised the importance of winning, even in pre-season, ahead of 25/26

Jordan Ayew’s 70th-minute strike sealed the win in Hungary – making it three successes from three this summer – and Cifuentes was pleased to see his side come out on top, emphasising that winning, even in pre-season, is important.

The 43-year-old was eager, too, to give as many players as possible the opportunity to impress as he begins to make his assessments on the squad.

“[There were] definitely positive things that we can bring with us,” Cifuentes said afterwards. “A lot of things to improve, which is normal at this stage. Perhaps the most important for me today was to give a proper chance to everyone.

“We played two XIs and made even more changes in the second half, but there was a lot of positives. I’m happy as well about the fact that we won.

“I liked the intention, the attitude of the team, the application. We’re a team that wants to be dominant, that wants to use the possession to attack and we’re trying.

“The timing on the movement and those rotations, everything, will come. I’m very happy with what I saw from Jeremy [Monga], from Louis [Page], from [Jake] Evans, from all the young guys, and also the application of the experienced players. That’s an interesting mix.”

Attention now turns to a new week, still at our HQ in Austria, with a double-header of matches to round it off on Friday. The work before then, though, will be focused on improving aspects from this performance before stepping up the match minutes.

Photo 1/24

Match imagery from our pre-season win against Zalaegerszegi TE at ZTE Arena.

“What I saw already from day one, in terms of training, we tried to apply that here,” he added. “Obviously it’s much more fun for everyone, for the fans, for me as a coach, when we can compete. It was important as well to win the game.

“It’s a friendly, that’s fine, but we’re here to win football games. It’s very common in pre-season to say the result doesn’t matter. For me, it matters always, and that’s why I’m happy about the application and the fact that the team is trying to do what we’re trying to do in training.

“The approach [this week] will be to improve everything we did today. We’re going to play two games. Probably it’s going to mean more minutes for all the players. That was one of the targets for coming here. It’s going to be an interesting week definitely.”

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