Here are some interesting quotes from famous football players from the present and the past. The quotes show an interesting insight into how the top players developed as youngters and some of the problems they had in the process.

1	Ronaldo's coach at Sporting confesses he cannot fathom how any human being could execute 3 stepovers and a dummy in what seems like a microsecond while remaining perfectly balanced. “It's all down to street football,” Ronaldo tells me. “We'd eat, drink and breathe football. I always felt very comfortable on the ball and have always had the belief that if you put 1 or even 5 in front of me I could go past them all" Christiano Ronaldo
2	“I am not sure how I do my tricks? It sounds corny but they just come to me naturally. I don't plan to do a trick, it just happens in a game.” Joe Cole
3	“If I was sent on an errand I would take with me anything that resembled a ball: it could be an orange, or scrumpled-up paper, or cloths. And I would go up the steps on to the bridge that crossed the railway, hopping on one foot, the right one, and taking whatever it was on the left, tac, tac, tac… That's how I walked to school as well.” “I guess we were ‘potrero' (waste ground) children more than anything. If our parents were looking for us, they knew where to find us. We would always be there in the potrero, running after the ball.” Diego Maradona, Argentina
4	“When they picked teams at school, I was always the last chosen. I used to get booted everywhere because I was really little. I didn't have many friends really.” David Beckham
5	"Imagine Franz Beckenbauer trying to play for Watford . He'd just be in the way." Frank McLintock, Arsenal
6	“I go much faster Than those who run Without thinking” Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pele), 1977
7	on ROBINHO “He isn't afraid of dribbling. That's the extraordinary thing. Sometimes coaches have a bad influence on young players. Sometimes they ask players not to dribble and so their development is limited. Not Robinho. He is allowed to use his skill. He is the greatest example of Brazilian fantasy football.” by Carlos Alberto Brazil 1970 captain
8	on RYAN GIGGS “I remember when I first saw him. He was 13 and he just floated over the ground like a cocker spaniel chasing a piece of silver paper in the wind.” by Alex Ferguson
9	FERENC PUSKAS “His shooting was unbelievable and his left foot was like a hand. He could do anything with it. In the showers he would even juggle with the soap.” Francisco Gento (Real Madrid colleague) I am grateful to my father for all the coaching he did not give me.”
10	“Nowadays I often stop and watch youngsters playing in the street or in parks, if only because every professional can recall doing the same. I remember the sense of freedom having a kick-about with your mates can give you; it didn't matter what position you played.” Robert Pires
11	“That is his great ability to be composed on the ball. He isn't fast, he isn't strong in the tackle, he doesn't hit a great long ball, he can't beat a man. But what he is great at when everyone else in this division is going at ninety miles an hour, hitting impossible balls, trying to squeeze things into spaces when it is just not on, is being composed and slowing it down. Knocking the fifteen-or-twenty-yard ball, getting it back, and knocking it again” Eamon Dunphy on Bobby Murdock at Middlesbrough , 1976
12	“I asked a manager for a ball to train with, He couldn't have been more horrified if I'd asked for a transfer. He told me they never used a ball at Barnsley . The theory was that if we didn't see it all week, we'd be hungry for it on a Saturday. I told him that come Saturday, I probably wouldn't recognise it” Danny Blanchflower Spurs Captain
13	“Recently I went home to England and saw Forest play Villa with twenty players crowded into a third of the pitch, and I wondered, ‘did I really play this kind of football?” Tony Woodcock as a Cologne and England striker in 1980
14	“The attitude in England is tricks are okay if they work…. If they don't you're a w*****. It doesn't seem to have sunk in that if you never try you'll never succeed” Neil Franklin Former England Defender
15	“I would hope to go to a club where the players were on the same wavelength as myself and were not playing ping-pong football. There are not many players in the City side who can read my passes. Either they don't understand or don't want to understand. Their vision is very limited. I can only help the team. I can not make it worse” Kazia Denya Manchester City, Poland International
16	“Throughout the game we demonstrated the golden rule of modern football; and that is: the good player keeps playing even without the ball. All the time he is placing himself so that when the ball comes to him he is able to make good use of it. We improved the English saying ‘Kick and run' to ‘Pass accurately and run into a good position.'” Feranc Puskas after Hungary beat England 6-3 in 1953
17	“I've been booked now over fifty times, but never for fouling, always for dissent. I've seen players really go into hurt people, and the referee does nothing” Stan Bowles QPR and England player
18	“Although I'm only human and do not always agree with sentiments expressed by writers, I'm wise enough, I hope, to appreciate that the spectator sees more of a match than a player, and I can often learn a good deal by studying some of the reporters' comments” Alf Ramsey, as a player
19	“People don't know what they're seeing, reporters don't know what's happening. I throw a pass that's intercepted and people blame me when it was the fault of someone who wasn't where he should have been. I throw a touchdown pass and I get the credit when it was underthrown and only a great catch made the play.” Joe Nameth, New York Jets Quarterback, on the American Football media, 1970
20	“I was six. There was one of those typical goalmouth scrambles that you get playing boy's football. The ball was bouncing all over the place, it was really messy and I decided to throw myself at the ball.” Henrik Larsson on scoring his 1st goal
21	“Football is a game you play with your brain. The game consists of different elements: technique, tactics and stamina. But the main thing is tactics, insight, trust and daring.” Johan Cruyff Ajax and Holland International
22	on ZINEDINE ZIDANE “He has an internal vision. His control is precise and discreet. He can make the ball do whatever he wants.” by Aime Jacquet France 's World Cup winning coach “I like to play by instinct.” Zinedine Zidane “Everything I have achieved in football is due to playing in the streets with my friends.” Zinedine Zidane
23	“I was fast, I learned to shoot from any angle. After training I'd stay to practice because I like it. For me it was love, passion.” Eusebio Portugal International
24	on AJAX (1970s team) “We did things automatically. Football is best when it's instinctive, when it comes from the heart.” Barry Hulshoff Ajax player
25	“The World Cup wasn't won (in 1966) on the playing fields of England . It was won on the streets” Bobby Charlton Record England Goalscorer
26	“In those days everybody wanted to be a footballer and play for his local team. I used to practise often against a wall with a tennis ball, not a big ball because we couldn't afford it in those days. And because it was a small ball it improved my ball control.” “When I wasn't playing football on the waste ground with my pals, I'd play by myself at home. I had a small rubber ball that I spent hours kicking against the backyard wall. Even at eight or nine years of age I was determined to practice at every opportunity, in the hope that the more I did it, the more I would become the ball's master. I used to place kitchen chairs in the backyard and practice dribbling the small ball in and out of them. When I felt I had become adept at that, I'd run at the chairs with the ball at my feet and flick it over each chair, catching on my foot on the other side before spinning around and shooting into an imaginary goal.” “We didn't need a referee; we accepted the rules of the game and stuck by them. For us not to have done so would have spoilt the game for everyone. It taught us that you can't go about doing what you want because there are others to think of and if you don't stick to the rules, you spoil it for everyone else. Of course, that was not a conscious thought at the time, but looking back those kick about games on the waste ground did prepare us for life.” I'd make for a piece if waste ground opposite our house where the boys from the neighbourhood gathered for a kick about. Coats would be piled for posts and the game of football would get under way. In fine weather it would be as many as 20 a side, in bad weather a hardened dozen or so made six a side.” Sir Stanley Matthews Stoke City and England
27	GLENN HODDLE “For me, the ball is a diamond. If you have something that precious you don't get rid of it, you offer it.”
28	“I was football mad as a boy. In that big back garden I'd kick a tennis ball around for hours. Along with the other boys from Ivy House Road , we'd play football in the street with the tennis ball until it was bald. Even when the bald tennis ball split, we still played football with it. When the tennis ball finally gave up the ghost that didn't stop us either. I had countless kickabouts in the street with half a tennis ball.” “It wasn't ideal but, looking back, those games with the tennis ball really helped develop my ball skills. The size of the tennis ball meant that I had to concentrate when it was at my feet. When shooting, I had to hit it just right, otherwise I might not make contact at all. As a consequence, my foot to eye coordination improved immeasurably and my general ball technique came on in leaps and bounds. When I came to play for the school with a proper leather football, I found making contact with the ‘sweet spot' relatively easy.” Jimmy Greaves Spurs and England Striker
29	PAULO DI CANIO “There's something wonderful in watching children chase a ball on a street or on a small patch of cement. It's a scene, which repeats itself around the world, but it has an enduring quality which, I believe, everybody who loves the game can relate.” “From a technical standpoint, I couldn't help but improve my skills. Anybody can trap and control a ball on a picture-perfect billiard table smooth pitch. But where I played, you had to learn how to control the ball no matter what, regardless of whether it bounced off the rubbish or skidded along the gutter. I learned how to dribble up steps, how to run non-stop for hours (there was no such thing as ‘out of bounds') and how to thread my way through tight spaces (we played eleven-a-side on a pitch which would have been tight for a five-a-side). I guess much of my close control and dribbling ability originated on the Stenditoi.” “But when you go out in the street or in the park and play football with other children for the first time, you are immersed into a world you do not control and of which you are not the centre. There is no safety net. You have to learn how to get along, how to resolve disputes, how to get by.”
30	" I started out playing in the street, but after that you have to fill in the gaps at training academies. It helps starting out in the streets, it gives you more of a battling spirit and you keep the same desire as when you were a kid" Djibril Cisse
31	"When he first became a manger at Coventry it was watching the kids that reminded him of how much he had loved the game when growing up. “We've said to the kids in our academy,” he said at the time, “first of all they have to love the game. They can learn about winning later on in life, but early they have to love it. They have to fantasize about the game. I was always one to fantasize. When I was a kid no one told me to push up; nobody told me to play offside; nobody told me to pass it; nobody screamed at me when I had the ball at my feet. I didn't have one mum shouting at me to do this, one dad telling me to do that and a coach instructing me to do something completely different. I could do my own thing. I could play centre-half if I wanted; I could play right-wing; I could go in goal. When I got older, I knew the football pitch, all of it.” Strachan's adamant that the enjoyment taken from the game from those ages can only bear fruit when that same player reaches a certain mature age. But that enjoyment could only be realized in the right environment. “People say kids are getting too much football. That's not right. They're getting too little football, but what they are getting is too much pressurized football . They play with their schools and clubs and have adults screaming at them from the sidelines. They only play in front of coaches and parents and don't play on their own where they can learn from their own mistakes. If you're dribbling and get kicked on the shins you say to yourself it's about time I passed now, or your team-mates will say, 'Oi, greedy guts, give us a pass. That's the way to learn." Gordan Strachan Manchester United and Scotland
32	“I was kicking a ball as soon as I could walk. If I couldn't find a ball, I used a can. Being a footballer was all I ever wanted to do. From as early as I can remember it was practice, practice, practice. Dad drew a line on the wall beside our council house, about three feet high. He said, ‘Keep the ball below this line using first your right foot and then your left. You'll thank me in the long run.' Using a tennis ball, me, Mark and later Sean did just that for hours on end, day after day, until it became second nature. I used to give that wall some stick. Wallop – that's an FA Cup final winner for Liverpool . Bosh – there's one for England . I kept banging them in until dad called us in for tea at 7.00pm . He would then go out for a pint, thinking we were safe inside, but as soon as we'd scoffed down our tea we'd be back out there with the tennis ball. Like many footballers of my generation, I believe playing with a tennis ball from such a young age helped my ball skills no end. When you actually got a proper-sized ball to kick it was easy after playing with a small ball.” Micky Quinn Newcastle United
33	“We would play on the way to school with an old bald tennis ball – or a tin can if we didn't have a ball – knocking it off the walls as we progressed, and then back home again in the afternoon. It was good practice for control and balance, because we usually had our school bags over our shoulders. The game we played was called ‘Three Lives' We'd knock the ball against the wall and pick up the return. It was quiet tricky because you had to flick it the side and beat your opponent. It demanded close control, not to mention the ability to avoid various obstacles on the street, some of them left by the local dogs.” “We made use of everything in those days, and in that kitchen where the beloved radio sat, we used to tie a string from the pulley with a ball of wool on the end. The first thing to do was swing it to ensure it wasn't hitting anything; then I would kick it to see where it would go. That done, I was ready to play, and I used to kick and head that ball of wool for hour after hour. Apart from the radio, that was more or less the sum total of my indoor entertainment.” Denis Law Manchester United and Scotland