Quotes from Marco van Basten

It's not easy being the first man as a trainer.

If you can score a lot of goals in Italy, you can do it in the Champions League as well.

I think the person I learnt the most from as a coach was Cruyff because he was always talking about tactics - how to play, where to play and when to play. I think that helps a lot of young players, which is good. He was the most important trainer for me.

Ronaldo is a great player. But those who claim that he is stronger than Messi do not understand football or are in bad faith.

I played against Maradona and he was a great player like Messi too.

Leonardo left Milan on bad terms, but I did not.

From the bottom of my heart I can honestly say that it is always nice to see Milan play.

I think it's strange to change the turf three days before a match.

Sometimes you have an exceptional international team, such as Spain in 2010, but club football is better.

As a coach, I felt I couldn't offer what I should offer. That made things too difficult for me. It was specifically my problem. I couldn't do it. I kept suffering from stress. I was the one who needed to take the decisions. Everybody's looking at you. 'What, when, who, how and where?'

We want to have a game which is honest, which is dynamic, a nice spectacle so we should try to do everything to help that process.

Football is spectacular and it has to stay spectacular in every sense.

I'd like to help the professional game to get it more exciting, more spectacular, more honest also.

The spectators want to see action, goals, tackles.

After two good and interesting years I decided to put an end to my duty at FIFA, mainly to be able to spend more time with my family in Amsterdam.

If I don't get enough attention, I want more attention. If I have too much attention, I want it to stop. It is not always easy to understand myself.

I tend not to pay too much attention to the person marking me.

I hope to be able to give my contribution to ensure that football remains the number one sport in the world.

The truth is that if you don't buy, improving the squad becomes difficult.

Arsenal have the most amazing stadium, they have a style of play, they have a beautiful shirt - in every way I consider Arsenal as the ultimate football club.

I'm sad when I see San Siro with empty stands.

They abolished the off-side rule in field hockey and there were no problems.

The 'play fair!' iniative is a plan for football. This strategy aims to promote fairness and integrity, ensure the game is accessible to everyone and optimise the use of technology.

In football you need opponents, competition because if you are alone with two or three clubs controlling everything you don't have any competition.