- Look at the great players who've missed penalties, players like Michel Platini, Marco van Basten, Diego Maradona. It happens.
- [on taking penalties] I was always happier scoring from 20 yards.
- It makes me laugh when I see people trying to coach kids. You cannot coach seven-year-olds. I was never coached and I bet John Barnes was never coached, or Peter Beardsley, or Paul Gascoigne.
- I'm not saying that just because you're a great player you'll be a great manager but people like John Barnes have a knowledge of the game you'll never find in any coaching book.
- All fans want to see their teams win, but they love it even more when they're entertained as well. I like the thought of someone leaving the ground and going into work or the schoolyard on Monday morning and saying 'Hey, you should have seen what Waddle did to this full-back'. People always remember Johan Cruijff's back-heel flick far more than any goal he ever scored. That's what football's about. Giving people something to smile about.
- We have got to wake up in this country and realize that we are not a great team. We coach too much at a young age and we take the skill away from our youngsters.
- I know I can't go on forever - I'll probably stop when I reach 50 - but I love playing football. It's as simple as that.
- I love entertaining people, being a showman. I loved the atmosphere on the terraces when I set off on a dribble.
- When I signed for Marseille, someone asked me if I was going to learn French. 'I wouldn't' they said, 'I'd make them speak English'. And that sums us up. We don't want to learn anything. We don't want to copy. Gary Lineker learnt to do it. Bobby Robson learnt more by going abroad. Steve McClaren will come back to England and he'll know so much more.
- It's an eye-opener. You think it's a game of football, like it is back home, but it's not. When Marseille got the ball, we played patient football, it was about possession, it was like a waltz. English football is based on the Charleston. The Premier League has always been a basketball league - you attack then they attack - but other leagues don't play like that. International football is about keeping the ball. My three years in Marseille taught me so much about football, which I would never have learnt in England.
- We're desperately short of players who can run with the ball and create and until we start producing that type of player again we'll remain a quarter-final team. Capello can't make somebody dribble past three players and create things if they aren't capable of doing it. The best teams have creative players that can provide a bit of magic; an Henry (Thierry Henry) or Zidane (Zinédine Zidane).
- I think that the coaching system at grassroots needs to be revamped. At 13 or 14, I think it should be all ball work and technique, but it's not, it's about power, size and winning. We used to produce players like Barnes (John Barnes), Gascoigne (Paul Gascoigne) and Hoddle (Glenn Hoddle), but now we have to import them. I think if the laws were changed - if it was easier for players to get into coaching without having to get all these badges - I would definitely get involved.
- I was completely left-footed until I was about 23. It's then that I started playing on the right-hand side and people knew I'd cut onto my left so I worked on my right in the gym. Twenty minutes a day for a couple of months is all it takes for a professional to improve his weaker foot. It makes me laugh that England are crying out for a left-footed player and the guys trying to get that role can't just practice for 20 minutes a day on their left.
- The FA sit on their backsides and do nothing tournament after tournament after tournament. Why don't they listen? Why don't they look at other countries and ask 'how do they keep producing talent?' We coach talent out of players ... We lack so many ideas and it is so frustrating. The amount of money in our league is frightening and all we do is waste it on rubbish ideas ... We kid ourselves thinking we have a chance if we keep the tempo up. We can only play one way and it is poor. You can't go on playing football and hoping to win trophies playing a hundred miles an hour and putting teams under pressure for 90 minutes. You've got to be able to play slow, slow, quick and we can't do it.
- I'm an England fan and I have struggled to comprehend how, from 1990 when we came so close to reaching the final, we have never kicked on from there. I thought we would but we never have.
- Gareth Southgate has shown the loyalty that Bobby Robson did to us in Italy 28 years ago.
- [on Luka Modric] His vision, his know-how, when he gets the ball, it always looks as if he's got time. His range of pass, sometimes it comes first time, he's under pressure. He switches the play first time, cross-field pass, without even looking. Listen, we've got to find a player like that. We used to have players like that. We haven't got anybody like that. We need to find a real creative midfield player. Not just one, we need to find a few, where you can change games. Put people on who can do things like that, who see passes, can beat people. We need somebody like that. We've not had anybody since Gazza [Paul Gascoigne].
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content