Quotes About Football

Bayern has always played a prominent role in my dreams.

He was so influential on every aspect of my game. I promise you - I would have been another Gianfranco Zola if I hadn't trained and played with Maradona every day.

Real is the club of my heart, and I promised my grandfather that I would play there one day. I hope that it will happen.

The play-offs are the sexy way to get promoted, playing in front of 90,000 people at Wembley, but you always want to do it automatically. If you come first or second, ultimately you've been better than the other teams over 46 games.

Obviously, being from MK and playing for MK my whole life, to get us promoted would be a dream come true.

With Swansea the aim is to get promoted and I'm going to try everything I can to help the team get there.

What people don't talk about is I've been promoted out of every division and been to the final of an FA Cup.

You don't hear a film director saying 'Money mustn't go out of the industry' to actors. You don't hear a concert promoter saying 'We must make sure that money doesn't go out of our industry' to Elton John. Some people in football seem to think, 'Never mind the players, let's get on with the game.'

Even away from the pitch, I commit every day of my life to promoting the greatest sport on earth.

Alan Pardew brought me to Southampton and was a great influence and then we had consecutive promotions under Nigel Adkins.

At my last Under-23s game I heard Reading were interested. I knew I had to push for that deal with a top three club fighting for promotion.

When you have a son in football like Anton, it will always be deemed as if he got the prop up and given the contract, no matter how hard he works. So much so that when he was offered a deal at Chelsea, I advised him not to take a professional contract.

Someone said that my coaching is a combination of Milan's defensive discipline and the Dutch propensity for attacking football, and I think that is a fair description.

I think the No. 9 will always be in football. You need the proper No. 9s in football; that's my opinion.

I got my first football when I was two and played my first proper game before I was five. So nothing else was ever an option!

It doesn't change the way I am, but I do totally understand how you're looked at as a footballer, especially by children. I don't claim I can shape their lives, but there's no harm in having good manners and being seen to play the game properly.

The opportunities for black cultures need to change and we need to get more culture in higher positions in football, because I think the racism that happens on football fields hasn't been addressed properly and it's been brushed under the carpet.

I could hardly walk for six months, never mind play football. I was limping for so long. I was walking with crutches - as in, properly walking - after about the first month because I thought it was much better to put my body weight on and build up the strength.

I had proposals from England, but I believe they would have had to adapt to my style.

Because the hash marks are narrower in the pros, the ball's always closer to the middle of the field. So if you're a defensive back, you can wait a lot longer before committing to a certain part of the field.

A lot of the older pros - I won't name names - they need the money and are bitter about the money in modern football.

The professional world makes a lot of young amateurs dream, and to go from one to the other can inspire others, like me, when I heard stories of Didier Drogba and Adil Rami, who went from being amateurs to becoming pros.

I never saw myself as a prospect, it was always about playing as much football as I can.

Things change, although I believe that certain principles - of attacking, entertaining football - should always be protected.