Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The best way to stop Messi is when you play with 11 men and then you can double mark him, one player to stay on him and the other to help out. If it is 11 against 10 then you have almost no chance of stopping him.
Everybody has a different opinion in this league and nobody is a prophet. I personally don't know who will win the league. I managed 1,600 games so, if Nani knows, he must be 1,600 times more intelligent than I am.
You see how Spanish, Italians, Portuguese play football. I don't say they are perfect, I say English football has a few things to learn from them in the same way they have a lot of things to learn from English football.
Yes, Manchester United are the best team in England, but you have to ask how good has the Premier League been since I left? If I was at a top club in England I think the title race might have been a lot closer this year.
I want to congratulate again Mike Dean. I think his performance was unbelievable and I think when referees have unbelievable performances, I think it's fair that as managers we give them praise. So fantastic performance.
If you have the money and you find the one player who can make you win and make the difference, no matter how expensive he is, you should do it. But there are not many players in the world who will make a real difference.
I don't have to be jealous of Barcelona because they have 100 years of history and have won the European Cup once. I have only been managing for five years and I have the same amount of Champions League trophies to my name.
When I arrive at the gates of Heaven the Good Lord will ask ‘what did you do in your life?’ I will respond ‘I tried to win football matches.’ He will say: ‘Are you certain that’s all?’ But, well, that’s the story of my life.
In football, I'm not so old. At 52, maybe I have 20 years in front of me to coach. But I feel myself as... you might say an 'old fox.' Nothing scares me; nothing worries me too much. It looks like nothing new can happen for me.
What motivates me is an ideal of thinking about how football should be. And to try to get near this way of playing. And to try to improve all aspects of my personality that can help me get near this ideal way of playing football.
To train a national team, you have to know what team you have at your disposal and what this team is capable of. You need to get the best out of them and take them as far as possible. Yet, sometimes, you can't achieve your goals.
Spare me the articles about how nice Shawcross is because that was a horrendous tackle. People say we don't fancy the physical side of it, but this is the result. If you see a player getting injured like that, it's not acceptable.
In a competitive world, not everybody can follow the pace; you will leave people out. We now accept that we must take care of these people. You cannot let them die in the streets; people will not accept it. And that is right, too.
I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, media and fans. [Claudio] Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say 'good morning' and 'good afternoon.'
I always think there's our age in ID terms but then there's our real age because for me the real age is not the age on your ID. That's just a date when you were born. The real age, the real ID is your body, your brain, your attitude.
When you're dealing with someone who only has a pair of underpants on, if you take his underpants off, he has nothing left - he's naked. You're better off trying to find him a pair of trousers to complement him rather than change him.
If I go into a season and I say, 'For f***'s sake, if we don't win anything, they will all leave,' I have already lost. The problem of the media is always to imagine the worst. The problem of the manager is always to imagine the best.
It's a strange atmosphere always over there, it is darker and less glamorous, and you don't feel as high. It is a different kind of test - can you raise your level in a less exciting environment and perhaps still a very difficult one?
He is someone I respect [Beckham] as a man and as a player. He is the captain of England and has been a European champion. I have never been critical of him and reports implying that are incorrect as I've never made comments about him
The score is high and very brutal but does not reflect what we saw on the pitch. The first shot on goal was a goal. The second was an own goal. The third was straight after half-time. They defend like mad and they catch us on the break.
Cristiano is an explosive type of player, with great technique, but he's still not as gifted as Messi in my opinion. Messi is more of a genius than Cristiano. Cristiano is so strong physically, so powerful, but Messi has more creativity.
Thomas Muller deserves enormous respect. He's hardly ever injured and has always been with the national team, where other players might have said they are tired, need a break or were injured. He has busted his butt for the national team.
I was nine or 10 years old and my father was sacked on Christmas Day. He was a manager, the results had not been good, he lost a game on December 22 or 23. On Christmas Day, the telephone rang and he was sacked in the middle of our lunch.
I always say that I need competition, and I need competition every week, and in Spain, I was at an amazing club, but I had four matches a year: Barcelona v Real Madrid, Real Madrid v Barcelona, and after that, we'd win 4-0, 5-0, 4-1, 6-1.
When I was a player, I'd have a pre-match meal of the biggest lump of fillet steak you could find, followed by rice pudding. Other times I'd have a steak and kidney pie. I'd finish the meal at 12.30 and be playing two-and-a-half hours later.
A great pianist doesn't run around the piano or do push ups with his fingers. To be great, he plays the piano. ...being a footballer is not about running, push-ups or physical work generally. The best way to be a great footballer is to play.
English players are as easy to coach. The problem is that the Premier League has the best players in the world, and statistically not all of them can be born in England. But we don't have enough English players: we are working very hard on it.
And I think because of the passion of every English player and every English supporter, and every English journalist for the game, most of the game is played with passion, love for football and instinct, but in football you also have to think.
So if one day the result becomes 3-3, for me it doesn't change my mind, because it's football, it's normal. What is not normal is that we haven't been scoring enough goals playing such good football as we've been playing in the last few weeks.
I know the questions will be around the money, the amount Chelsea had to spend to bring him here but that's the reality of modern football. Big teams only want big players, big players are in big clubs, big clubs want to keep their big players.
It is always a danger when you have a big game ahead, but there is only one way to prepare well for our Champions League game - and that is to do well tomorrow. Therefore, I feel there is a lot at stake for us tomorrow. It is a massive game for us.
We played a whole season unbeaten but you did not see me every week jumping on the tables. Once it's over it's over and you do in the next one as well as you can. Plenty of managers who have won the Champions League will not be considered great managers.
As a non-Arsenal player I would say Ryan Giggs is my Premier League player of the decade because he has combined style with winning. Also I feel sorry he could never attend the World Cup, somewhere where people get a lot of compliments when they do well.
It is like having a blanket that is too small for the bed, you pull the blanket up to keep your chest warm, and your feet stick out. I cannot buy a bigger blanket because the supermarket is closed. But the blanket I have is made of cashmere. So it's good.
Kenny wasn't the quickest of movers but he was 20 yards quicker than anybody else with his football brain and he would be in position before any defender knew what was happening. I've always said the best signing that Liverpool ever made was Kenny Dalglish.
Messi's like a PlayStation. He can take advantage of every mistake we make. He made the impossible possible. He has something exceptional. He has six or seven years in front of him, touchwood that nothing happens to him, and he can reach unbelievable levels.
It's important that you prepare the players for what happens at a tournament, like a World Cup, for example. You can get a better idea of a situation. They can get to know the conditions, the atmosphere in the country, the stadiums and the journeys involved.
There has been evolution in many different areas - the way I read the game; the way I prepare the game; the way I train; the methodology... I feel better and better. But there is one point where I cannot change: when I face the media, I am never a hypocrite.
I believe in work, in connections between the players, I think what makes football great is that it is a team sport. You can win in different ways, by being more of a team, or by having better individual players. It is the team ethic that interests me, always.
I am not against being pragmatic, because it is pragmatic to make a good pass, not a bad one. If I have the ball, what do I do with it? Could anybody argue that a bad solution like just kicking it away is pragmatic just because, sometimes, it works by accident?
I can have everything I love at the same time. I can have my family, I can have my friends, and I can have my quiet life, which I also like. I can have my football, and I can have everything together, and I don't need to give up one to be better than what I am.
Look at my haircut. I am ready for the war. The objective is to win the Premiershp. I don't want to dominate, to finish without defeat, record points or goals or consecutive wins. The Premiership is so difficult you cannot be focused on that. I just think about winning.
For me pressure is bird flu. I'm serious. I'm feeling a lot of pressure with the problem in Scotland. It's not fun and I'm more scared of it than football. Football is nothing compared with life. For me bird flu is the drama of the last few days. I'll have to buy a mask.
You can have the top stars to bring the attention, you can have the best stadium, you can have the best facilities, you can have the most beautiful project in terms of marketing and all this kind of thing. But if you don't win... All the work these people are doing is forgotten.
Wenger has been Arsenal's coach for 15 years but he hasn't won even a Carling Cup for six years. Benitez hasn't won a league title in six years but they continue to keep him as Liverpool's coach. This is not the Italian mentality. To stay here I must continue winning and do well.
He is the best. The best in the world, yes. Probably the best ever. I saw Maradona a couple of times. I never saw Pele. But Cristiano is amazing. This man is the best... Cristiano is a goals machine. He is an incredible player. He is like Zidane, there will never be another Ronaldo.
As far as I'm concerned, this guy should never play football again. The answer you normally get after a tackle like that is 'he is not the type of guy who does that.' It's like a guy who kills one time in his life - it's enough. You have a dead person. This tackle is absolutely horrendous.
You shouldn't be scared of putting together a team made up of experts who are better than the coach in some aspects... So for me personally, it was important to have people in my environment who discuss things with me, who give me their opinions, but who are loyal to me and who are reliable.
The role of a coach is varied. We have many tasks. To be a visionary that always looks a little bit towards the future: How should the team develop? How should it play at a tournament? Of course you also have to be the contact person for the players, where social competence also plays a role.
Everyone has a right to an opinion. I can arrive in England and express my opinion. If criticism were ferocious and without intellectual objectivity they should show me the way to their airport. It is important to have an opinion and not be afraid to express it, knowing there will be criticism.