Spain Football Quotes & Sayings

I've still got Paul Scholes' shirt at home which I swapped with him once. When I was at Liverpool he was one of the players I liked most. Maybe he's not valued as much as he should be in England because of the style of football there and because he keeps a low profile. Perhaps he would have been more valued in Spain, where midfielders like him form part of the 'ideal.' Fans in Spain rate him very highly and I admire him a huge amount. — Xabi Alonso

A player who dives and wins a penalty in Portugal, or Spain or Italy is considered clever, experienced, cunning, someone who understands the game. In England a player who wins a penalty like that is a cheat. — Jose Mourinho

The certainty that our football, the football of Spain, is recognised, that's very important to us - perhaps more important than the successes and the joy that you can create. Football hasn't always been appreciated, and luckily our football is appreciated now, at all levels of society. — Vicente Del Bosque

Is this good for English football? In the short run, Chelsea's rise has broken up what was turning into an irritating Arsenal-Manchester United duopoly. But football leagues (look at Scotland, look at Spain) can get along OK with duopolies. A monopoly, however, is a disaster. Everyone else in the Premiership has to operate on some kind of business footing, and the terror stalking Highbury and Old Trafford is that Chelsea will be immune from financial discipline forever. — Matthew Engel

I like a lot of sports. Especially football - it's my favourite sport. My uncle played football in Barcelona for nine years and played for Spain in three World Cups. — Rafael Nadal

I played football for seven years in Spain and was called everything because I was from South America, and I never went out crying like a baby, like Patrice Evra, saying that someone had said something to me. — Gus Poyet

Do you remember when we played in Spain in the Anglo-Italian Cup? — Shaun Newton

If you come from Spain, you have to play football. — Enrique Iglesias

I've no regrets at all, but I still think at times that I would have loved to play in England. You live football over there; it's a great culture. People respect you more; it's more difficult to find respect in Spain. There is more criticism here. — Xavi

I knew Manuel Pellegrini from my time in Spain. I'd only heard good things about him, that he was someone who instilled the confidence in his players to go out and play good, attacking football. — Sergio Aguero

When I was younger, I had some close friends who always loved European football, and Real Madrid at that time were the dominant force. I remember family holidays when we used to go to Spain, and we'd bring back replica shirts of Real Madrid and pretend to be the players when we played in the park. — Gareth Bale

In Holland and Spain and France, where so many of us come from, people aren't interested in the sex lives of their players. We don't hear these stories - even in Italy where the media is right on top of football. — Dennis Bergkamp

in the morning and when I returned it was one o'clock the next morning. We spent the whole time chatting about what football was like over there in Spain. — Luca Caioli