Top 106 Quotes & Sayings by Manuel Pellegrini

If you do not know each player individually, one on one, it is impossible to form a team from 22 distinct personalities, different languages, different home countries, but with one common aim.

I'm not obsessed by football.

For some players, it is a dream to play at Madrid.

I cannot tell everyone what they must say or what they must not say. Everyone is the owner of their own words.

To lead a group of players is to lead a group of people with different ways of thinking. You have to be prepared for that and know more than just about football. You have to speak a lot to the players, have to make them feel what you expect of them. Have to convince them. Therefore, it's very important for a coach to have a life outside football.

Playing every day with important players is good for a young player: you are always learning from experienced players.

Life is like a building: it is impossible for anyone to achieve anything without a strong foundation, and the family is the most important foundation you can have.

I can't get anything out of an orchestra if I have the 10 best guitarists, but I don't have a pianist or a drummer.

I am very self-critical about what I do. Always.

My first experience out of my country was Ecuador. That was a very good option for me. To know how you can develop your coaching style or your personality being away and being alone, that is not easy.

Any coach who's managed a big club in Argentina can manage anywhere.

I didn't have a voice or a vote at Madrid.

You will never run more than the ball. The players that don't lose the ball are the most important in the team, and good players decide the game.

I always speak with all the players during the week before every game we play, because it's important for them to know what I think and for me to see how they are before the game.

First I was going to be a football player, then after that try to study medicine or engineering. But it was very difficult to do medicine, so I did engineering.

Football is so difficult to predict.

There are lots of different ways to play football; I choose one in my career. I believe in that one.

The most difficult thing is football is to give the ball to a player that has the same colour shirt.

I would be happy to go back to Spain at the right moment.

When I live in a country, I always try to learn about the country - not just England, the U.K. as a whole - so I will stay here some days to do something different.

I am very lucky to have a wife who supports me, but the absence from my children was difficult from the moment I took a very difficult decision to have a career which requires so much dedication and focus, just like raising children.

To be the coach of Real Madrid is an honour, and every coach has pride in that. However, one is also subjected to a wide range of critiques - some just, but others not. But when the criticism deteriorates into insults, which has happened many times, I don't appreciate that.

I don't believe in projects of more than three years.

You need the desire to demonstrate the way you can play, which team you are.

Lionel Messi is very difficult to contain.

When I made the transition from player to coach, I evaluated myself and saw that I needed to improve my personality. I would fight with players - literally. I was 35, and you can't be like that; you have young players to guide. You have to transmit calm.

We can all get better. We all have to think about how to improve ourselves, no matter how good we are.

This hunger of triumph is fundamental in order to get results.

The Premier league is better with Mourinho.

It's not my duty to respond to what Mourinho says. I don't know the way he thinks.

I never knew a manager that didn't have pressure.

When you are in the biggest clubs, and you are fighting for the best players with a lot of money, maybe the work of a sporting director is not so difficult.

First, as an owner of the club, you must choose a style of football. After that, you must find the managers that will work with the young players in your team in that style. After that, you must put a manager in the squad with the same mentality.

For me, the youth academy has a fundamental role in every club.

You create a big-club mentality with the trust of the players, the trust that the team will get results, and then, when results are not good, the trust to continue with your idea.

I like new experiences. It's one of the reasons I went to China.

As a manager, I won eight trophies in Chile, Ecuador, and Argentina.

In Spain, I'd taken Villarreal to league runners-up and the quarter-final and then semi-final of the Champions League.

I went to Villarreal for 30% less than I could have earned in Mexico.

What I don't want to be is the most important person of the club. If we win a game, it was the players who played very well.

I had no interest in continuing with Real Madrid in the way that we were working.

It is vital to maintain possession and to win it back as soon as possible, because if we win it high up, then the opposition has to run 70 metres.

From a personal perspective, I try never to go back to a club where I have already coached.

There can be very cheap players that play very well, and maybe, expensive players, they don't do so well.

It is never a problem to have good players on the bench.

When you are 21 years old, and you work as a good professional, you must improve.

Samir Nasri is a very technical player who always made the difference playing as a midfielder when he is fit.

Technical players make the game easy. They have a view of the pitch different from other players. They put the last pass for the strikers. They are the players that lose two or three balls in a year.

I am sure that the important managers always want to work here in the Premier League.

It's very difficult to have the same motivation in the season after you've won two trophies.

You always depend on what the owners think of the job you are doing.

When you manage a big team like River Plate or Madrid, they are used to winning titles. The people are happy, but they are used to it. When you have an achievement like I had in Villarreal, reaching the semi-final of the Champions League, finishing second in the league, it's more than winning a title. It's more.

I think that every player in every team must have an ambitious mind.

A lot of young players relax a bit when they reach the first-team, thinking they have reached the finish line, but really, it's just the beginning.

I enjoy England and enjoy the Premier League.

When I started to be a coach, I expected a lot - maybe too much - in terms of physical approach, tactics, and technique. There was too little emphasis on human relationships.

I've always liked technical, creative central midfielders with the capacity to score goals, such as David Silva, Samir Nasri, and Santi Cazorla.

I enjoy working, and I enjoy working every day - and it is for that reason that I don't so much like the idea of working with an international squad. To have every day on the pitch is important to me.

I like English football; it's a very important league. I like the crowds in England, too - they are noisy and create a special ambience.

I learned English, French, Italian.