Quotes About Football

I have evolved a lot as a player working with Klopp, who is a very tactical coach.

If you play at Anfield, for me, it's not a tactical game. It's to play with confidence, to trust the players.

Arsene Wenger took a lot of inspiration from players, he gave you a lot of freedom. Unai Emery is a bit more tactical.

People get the impression that we approach football without method: that we're a bunch of skilled individualists. This just isn't so. I'm all for individuality. But I personally go through every tactical plan before every match.

Training under Conte is strange - there's a lot of tactical work. In that respect, though, he is one of the best coaches I have ever had.

In Spain, the game's a lot more open. They score a lot more goals. They play football more. Here in Italy, they are much more concerned with tactics and strategy, and sometime we don't play football.

What football means to an Italian coach is tactics, trying to control the game by following the ideas and systems of the manager.

Guardiola focuses only on the tactics.

Football in England is much more direct that in Spain - not just in terms of tactics or style but in the overall approach.

At seven, I played centre-back. When you're so young, though, it's more to enjoy the training and to get a feel for the game. It's not heavy on tactics of a position. We were playing on a half pitch, seven against seven or eight against eight, so they say you're a centre-back, but it's not like the real definition.

Tactically, Italians are very strong. They are a lot into tactics: how to defend, when you lose the ball, where will you be?

The friendlies are an opportunity to look at different players and tactics.

In Spain, players have an official price tag, just like shirts hanging in a shop do.

People too often - because it's an easy, lazy tag - dwell on my style of football.

You don't want to get to the point where you play out your contract and you get to those complicated situations where they can put the franchise tag on you and things like that.

Obviously, if you are playing against a guy who is known for an up-tempo offense, you'll probably tailor your practice a little bit to say, 'Hey, let's get a couple of fast-paced plays back to back to back to try to simulate that.'

We have to take advantage of the power of football and show solidarity to people who are facing hard times. The fans give us so much love, and we have a responsibility to take that love and project it somewhere important, such as children who are in great need.

I know what I'm capable of doing. I just want to stay fit and healthy and let my football take care of itself.

The good thing is I don't put the ball in my right hand and I'm predominantly left-handed when I'm running the ball. I just have to take care of the football and even if I have two hands that are 100 percent, I still can't turn the ball over. It's just something I have to mentally prepare for, and I think I'm strong enough to do that.

I just wanted to defend football, which is not always easy to do. Those of us who have been in the sport so many years now realise we must protect it and look after it. I was speaking about football, what it means. It is our profession, it has been our lives, and we must take care of it a little.

You have to take care of the ball to win football games.

I don't want football to not be played, but I would like the sophistication brought forth to take care of those who need to be taken care of and to take the precaution, at the sacrifice of winning, to take care of people.

If a guy is hurt, you take care of him. The Falcons didn't do that.

It's not an exercise on how to avoid getting hit. I think there are certain safety measures that take care of the mental part of it, with players not looking to hit somebody in the head. They've done that. But let's not take the entertainment value out of football.