Marco van Basten

“If you have 48 countries in a World Cup, we have more countries who have the joy of participating.”

“As a coach, I felt I couldn't offer what I should offer. That made things too difficult for me. It was specifically my problem. I couldn't do it. I kept suffering from stress. I was the one who needed to take the decisions. Everybody's looking at you. 'What, when, who, how and where?'”

“We have to ensure that the product called football is always getting better.”

“When I was growing up, we didn't qualify for the 1982 and 1986 World Cup and the 1984 Euros. And then suddenly we won in 1988. It goes up and down. We are a small country.”

“Messi is unique. Inimitable and unrepeatable. Like him, one every fifty years. As a child, he fell into the pot of the football genius.”

“I hope to be able to give my contribution to ensure that football remains the number one sport in the world.”

“Barca play a really clever type of football, close together with everyone at a high level technically.”

“I'm sad when I see San Siro with empty stands.”

“Sometimes you have an exceptional international team, such as Spain in 2010, but club football is better.”

“I played against Maradona and he was a great player like Messi too.”

“Two days before the World Cup, it's a good time to be back to your best.”

“Whatever the situation, winning is always the most important thing.”

“If your ankle is damaged and you get another heavy tackle on it the pain is always with you.”

“My first dream as a young boy was to be a gymnast and my first memory of football is of watching Ajax win the European Cup in 1971. It was a time when a great philosophy was being developed at Ajax, making rounded players who were there as a complete team rather than as 11 individuals.”

“We must keep looking for ways to improve the game.”

“As a player, you play and you have much more influence. As a manager, you talk about the game all week with every player and all of a sudden when it starts, your influence is so small and it was very difficult for me to accept that.”

“The video ref should focus on the key things, situations ahead of goals, penalties and red cards.”

“In sport it's all about winning, not how you win.”

“Lewandowski reminds me a bit of me. I was a bit of a mix of him and Ronaldo. I also understood playing with the others and I could give assists.”

“We play to win.”