A Quote by Jan Vertonghen

I want to play in Europe and learn another language. Spain and Italy are options. — © Jan Vertonghen
I want to play in Europe and learn another language. Spain and Italy are options.
When I retired, at that time I had a lot of proposals to play in Europe, England, Italy, Spain, Mexico. But I said no, after 18 years I want to rest, because I want to retire.
I'm a pessimist about the euro, but not about Europe. So the southern periphery, Spain, Italy, Greece, leave - Italy might be the first to go - and the rest stay. That will work just fine. But unless they want to give up democracy, I don't see greater fiscal union as the answer.
I thought, 'I'm going to play in Yugoslavia, then I'll go to play in Italy or Spain.' Then I'll be 28 or 29 and I'll try NBA. I never thought I can play in NBA because NBA was totally different world for us in Europe.
We often forget that Spain controlled big parts of Europe, in Italy and the Netherlands. In the Middle Ages, Spain and Portugal were so powerful that they signed a set of treaties literally dividing up the globe between them.
The Renaissance of Europe did not take place in the 15th century. Rather it began when Europe learned from the culture of the Arabs. The cradle of European awakening is not Italy. It is the Muslim Spain.
There was interest from clubs in Italy and England, I believe. But I've never been attracted by the way they play in Italy. Staying in Spain was always my preference.
If you play in France, Spain or Italy it is not the same football, especially when you play in England. Every game is very difficult.
The public negotiations and secret intrigues of the English (Jews) and the French (Jews) have been employed for centuries in every court and country in Europe. Look back to the history of Spain, Holland, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Italy and Turkey for the last hundred years...all the power of Europe will be continually maneuvering with us to work us into the real or imaginary balance of power.
Spain and southern Italy, in which Catholicism has most deeply implanted its roots, are even now, probably beyond all other countries in Europe, those in which inhumanity to animals is most wanton and unrebuked.
After three years in Japan there were some options to play in Europe, but I chose Porto because when I was 15 I went to their stadium once and said to myself, 'One day I will play here.'
If I went to Spain and lived there for five years, I'm not going to play for Spain. For me an English player should play for England, really.
My first flight was to Majorca as a 17-year-old and I went to Seattle to visit a friend after that. But the first time I really ventured out abroad to Canada and Japan as well as to Europe, to France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, was to promote my first album.
In Spain, we have a pretty good league - for me, I think it's the second-best league in the world. They play tough there, they play aggressive. The big difference is that we play only one game a week in Spain, maybe two.
In Europe there's kind of a reaction to the European Union, kind of a move towards some kind of regionalization. It's more advanced in some regions than others, like in Spain for example. Catelan was repressed under Franco. People spoke it, but not publicly. It's now the language of Catelonia. The Basque language is being revived, not just the language but the culture, the folk music and everything else. So you're getting more diverse societies, and it's happening in Britain as well.
When it became clear that I couldn't stay at Bayern I thought about going to play in Spain or Italy. Fiorentina came forward, they were looking for a striker, and everything happened very quickly.
The E.U. cannot give up on common solidarity. The idea that every country does its own thing, and history and geography decides whose turn it is - whether Greece or Italy or Spain or, who knows, even Poland if there's a crisis in north-eastern Europe - that just can't be. There has to be a common policy.
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