Gianfranco Zola

“Carlo Ancelotti is a good coach and a good man. I worked with him for just three months at Parma, before I left for Chelsea, although I had worked with him before with the national team. In my first game for the national team I played with him.”

“In football you never know what's going to make you close to somebody.”

“Carlton Cole is no surprise to me anymore. For me, some of the bits he does are unbelievable.”

“Sometimes in football, like in life, you have to step into the wilderness. That's the way to get better. You have to try new things and be positive.”

“Pirlo is one of those players who, as they grow older, their football intelligence is such that they remain vitally important.”

“In life you have to be ambitious, you have to look forward all the time.”

“He was so influential on every aspect of my game. I promise you - I would have been another Gianfranco Zola if I hadn't trained and played with Maradona every day.”

“In football you have many opinions and you have just to notice those that make sense to you.”

“I am the first one to believe that if a player is happy in what he is doing he performs much more.”

“I love the game and I have a fair approach to it.”

“If someone can make a team champions, it is Tevez.”

“It is obviously pleasing to see your name associated with La Nazionale.”

“It's very difficult and unfair probably to compare players from different eras, because they were able to reach excellence in their time and they have to be rewarded for that.”

“When I was making myself known I learnt a lot from him. I definitely regard him as the greatest, although it's difficult to say that and also unfair because there are players from different eras that have been so important and Maradona was one of them, but certainly he was an unbelievable player and I'm so glad I met him.”

“I really do like Scottish people. I have met Gordon Strachan quite a few times and always liked him. Craig Burley is another Scot I played with at Chelsea and he's a good guy.”

“When you are a talented footballer you rely on your abilities to win games. You use your skills without thinking. But in management that doesn't work.”

“It's not easy to make big players bond together.”

“I'm not an enemy of formations and tactics because they are important - but you get to the point where the whole system loses balance.”

“Some players mature at 18. Others at 28.”

“I'm a proud man.”