Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.
Technique is not being able to juggle a ball 1000 times. Anyone can do that by practicing. Then you can work in the circus. Technique is passing the ball with one touch, with the right speed, at the right foot of your team mate.
Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins.
Every trainer talks about movement, about running a lot. I say don't run so much. Football is a game you play with your brain. You have to be in the right place at the right moment, not too early, not too late.
Players that aren't true leaders but try to be, always bash other players after a mistake. True leaders on the pitch already assume others will make mistakes.
If you have the ball, you must make the field as big as possible, and if you don't have the ball, you must make it as small as possible.
There’s only one moment in which you can arrive in time. If you’re not there, you’re either too early or too late.
We must make sure their worst players get the ball the most. You'll get it back in no time.
When you play a match, it is statistically proven that players actually have the ball 3 minutes on average ... So, the most important thing is: what do you do during those 87 minutes when you do not have the ball. That is what determines wether you're a good player or not.
If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.
Someone who has juggled the ball in the air during a game, after which four defenders of the opponent get the time to run back, that's the player people think is great. I say he has to go to a circus.
Choose the best player for every position, and you'll end up not with a strong XI, but with 11 strong 1's.
Why couldn't you beat a richer club? I've never seen a bag of money score a goal.
In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender.
I find it terrible when talents are rejected based on computer stats. Based on the criteria at Ajax now I would have been rejected. When I was 15, I couldn't kick a ball 15 meters with my left and maybe 20 with my right. My qualities technique and vision, are not detectable by a computer.
I'm not religious. In Spain all 22 players make the sign of the cross before they enter the pitch. If it works all matches must therefore end in a draw.
There is only one ball, so you need to have it.
Football is about making mistakes. Who makes the most, loses the game.
Mourinho is a coach of titles, not football. Or rather, not a football coach if we understand the sport is a spectacle or entertainment for those who watch it, either at home or live in the stadium.
I'm ex-player, ex-technical director, ex-coach, ex-manager, ex-honorary president. A nice list that once again shows that everything comes to an end.
I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.
Before I make a mistake, I don't make that mistake.
For the world of football, Messi is a treasure because he is role model for children around the world... Messi will be the player to win the most Ballons d'Or in history. He will win five, six, seven. He is incomparable. He's in a different league.
There are very few players who know what to do when they're not marked. So sometimes you tell a player: that attacker is very good, but don't mark him.
Players today can only shoot with their laces. I could shoot with the inside, laces, and outside of both feet. In other words, I was six times better than today's players.
