Quotes from Xabi Alonso

Matches in England are special.

When I was a Real Sociedad player, we lost on every occasion we visited Camp Nou. Maybe that is normal for a small team, but with Liverpool and Real Madrid, you expect more.

I will always be grateful to Liverpool. It is a very special club.

I've still got Paul Scholes' shirt at home, which I swapped with him once. When I was at Liverpool, he was one of the players I liked most.

There were many good reasons to move to Bayern, and Pep Guardiola was definitely one of them.

Munich is a very good city to live in. The life quality is superb.

Everything can change in the Champions League.

I want to win the Champions League with Bayern.

Bayern is a big club and a big brand, but on a daily basis, it's a family club. You get to know the physios, the kit man, the chefs. It's also a club that's very close to the supporters. That proximity to the fans makes it special. That was surprising. In Liverpool and Madrid, there's more distance.

I had five great years at Liverpool and I would rather just keep that memory as it is.

There are not many better clubs to play football for than Liverpool.

If you win the midfield, you probably win the game. But that doesn't mean the players in the midfield are the ones alone who determine that, because now we have strikers who drop into midfield and defenders who move up into the midfield. It is the area you must dominate.

I accept I am going to miss playing because it's such an important part in my life. It's going to be difficult to fill that gap. Life goes on.

I have learned from all of my coaches, and I am sure I will learn a lot with Guardiola.

If I decide somewhere along the way to take my chances as a manager, my link, my commitment, my passion with Liverpool is there.

I know what my strengths and weaknesses are on the pitch. My duty is to be risk averse.

My game is not to have one great action. My game is to be consistent throughout: to bring the ball in the best and quickest possible way for the best players to make the last action.

Passion isn't something you work on. It's more important to construct a good team, to know how you are going to play, how to read the match. You have to truly understand the game.

I stay in contact with friends I have in Liverpool. It's not a normal club; it's so special and very important to me.

Madrid is a big city. It's very dynamic and cosmopolitan.

They value different things in every country. In England, it's very physical. You tackle, you shoot. I love watching it. In Spain, it's different. Pass the ball, move, find the space.

Sometimes that kind of last-ditch tackle can get the crowd excited, and you get a push from that. It's important to play with that psychological side of the game, but it depends on the quality of the player.

I don't think tackling is a quality. It is a recurso, something you have to resort to, not a characteristic of your game.

At Liverpool, I used to read the match day programme, and you'd read an interview with a lad from the youth team. They'd ask age, heroes, strong points, etc. He'd reply, 'Shooting and tackling.' I can't get into my head that football development would educate tackling as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play.