Marcel Desailly

“We need to understand and to trust the fact that every single time Abramovich or the management of Chelsea have been able to get the correct coach to go for victory.”

“Spain, with their player development model, has been able to sustain a league that keeps all their players in the system and thus the national team is benefiting.”

“It's much easier to fight for your teammates when you get on well with them, when there is harmony in the squad.”

“Playing football helped me to gain self-discipline, confidence, negotiation skills, teamwork and leadership.”

“At the same age, I would say Thierry did not have the same ability as Mbappe but he had intelligence, brain and the desire to become the best.”

“To compete with Spain and France you have to copy the model that we have established in the clubs. You have to start from the beginning, by creating the infrastructure. You have to have good coaches who enable youth players to understand and read the game.”

“Didier was always a leader but a leader through the collective. He has always known how to gee his teammates up and help get the best out of them.”

“In '98, we were not the best team. But after that, we had the anger to prove to the whole world we were the best. From '99 to '01, we were No 1. With that there is stress, pressure, and we did not handle it when the World Cup came in 2002.”

“In football you have to be lucky. I'm a lucky man.”

“I'm a great believer in sport as a vector for change.”

“Del Piero, I didn't ever really want to play against him. Inzaghi was also this kind of player who doesn't give you a point of reference.”

“Because he knows he has the talent to change games, you get the impression Neymar wants to be the one to do that something special. But he has to understand that it's not like that at international level. He might be the greatest player, but you have to think of the collective.”

“Any France midfield would not be complete without the magician, Zinedine Zidane.”

“Lyon is a big club, but it's not Milan, Barcelona or Chelsea.”

“In France, we lose all our players to other leagues and our own league cannot benefit from the talent we produce.”

“You can't rely on one player on the international level.”

“Signing for Marseille was a dream come true. Everything that happened to me afterwards was magic.”

“When you are a coach there are some keys things that you have to put aside. Like your own experience. You can never talk to your players about your own experience.”

“At 36, as soon as you have an injury, then it is difficult to overcome.”

“In modern football all the teams are capable of getting organised and causing problems. The underdogs are not scared any more.”