I looked at Manchester with more interest when Cristiano was here because it's normal when you have Portuguese players in some teams, you look at them more than other teams.
The Spanish league has better individual players than the German league. However, in Germany, there are more teams that are uncomfortable to play against because they are more aggressive than teams in Spain.
More and more teams are using almost exclusively the draft to build their teams. And that means you have younger players to develop in those key depth positions. Younger players are more susceptible to streaks than veterans. They go up, they go down.
I think players look around and they look at the teams that they'd like to join and it's usually teams that already have good players on those teams.
There are lots of come-from-behind wins, games getting tied in the last period, teams going on to win. That, I think, tells the best story. Whether or not some teams have more grit, better chemistry, or more luck or more skill, it's still within the parameters. I think that makes for great storytelling and great interest for our fans.
In the 1990s, we had seven great teams - Milan, Inter, Juventus, Parma, Lazio, Roma, Fiorentina. If you look at the players, they were great players, but there was some crazy investment, and some teams went bankrupt, like Parma and Lazio.
The one thing that teams can't endure in the NFC any more is injuries. Good teams become bad teams just because they get spread thin with injuries.
Teams that play together beat those teams with superior players who play more as individuals.
There are so many great players in the Premier League and of course the big teams are always the favourites, but the teams below them also play good football. The mixture of foreign and English players works really well.
The European leagues and teams are more competitive, very technical. It was good to work in Qatar - a good experience for me for the future. In the U.S.A., the teams and the players are improving every season.
But if you look at teams that want to share more revenues, they're teams that don't have a lot on the table. They've long since not had any serious investment in their team.
I enjoy working with players who want to work and I get more satisfaction with that than ready made teams or players.
I think that the game has gotten faster, so it's more position-less more so than position, and it's about fit and how pieces fit together and having teams match up to you more so than matching up to teams.
When you look at the best teams, the teams that make a run at it, they're the healthiest teams.
When you speak about teams who are experienced in the fight against relegation, the teams are used to handling this kind of situation. The teams who are not so experienced in this sort of thing have more difficulties to handle the pressure and the disappointments.
There is nothing wrong with [pitching by committee] in mid-week [games]. It creates unique problems for hitters. I think it creates more problems for good-hitting teams than it does for the other teams.
Well, to have some teams come at you like Montreal did, it’s definitely flattering, and I think it was good for me to also set a precedent for players like me and how important we can be to teams. That was something I was happy to do as well, you know? Sometimes players like me are maybe overlooked or not looked at as an important piece to the puzzle, but it was something I wanted to prove and wanted to show.