Xavi Quotes

I think the best place to work in football is England.

In England, footballers are respected more, the game is more noble, there's less cheating. Every Spaniard who goes loves it - and comes back a better player. If I had ever left, it would have been to England.

If you destroyed the underpinnings of this great American sport, you are a hated, ugly, detestable person.

I think there are a lot of good people, a lot of good football guys in the NFL.

There is a great deal of fair play in English football.

I'm not a Packers fan. I just like football. I do respect those guys. You respect great football. I'm a Cowboys fan, or I was a Cowboys fan. You just respect great football.

I love English football because of its brilliant atmosphere, intensity of the competition and the culture of respect that fans and players have for the game.

I have great respect for the Premier League, for the teams, and the great players there.

To make a difference within the football environment means to make a difference in the world.

I feel really proud of my career - more here in England than in Spain. There are different mentalities. Here the people respect you.

I always thought about working in England because of the kind of football, the intensity of football. Liverpool was first choice.

In Spain, people do not respect the players, the same in Italy. In England, it looks like a different world - the people admire the player, but also respect the player.

The Ivory Coast had been begging for ages. The country and the fans love me already, and I haven't even done anything. I may not get the red carpet - it may not have the same Nike deals as when you play for England - but I'm going to be playing, I'm going to be loved, and that's all I want. Nothing else.

The one thing we have to remember about Fernando Torres is that he's a human being who has come in for an enormous amount of criticism, not least during the World Cup from people in Spain and around the world.

I love watching England and what they are doing. But I can promise you I've not thought about anything that high.

Playing for England in Spain was really hard but racism is still in the game, which it shouldn't be. I think when you're playing the best thing to do is block it out like you do with everything else.

I think Pique, apart from the odd personal remark, has never had a bad opinion about any of my teammates at Real Madrid, but obviously, when he attacks Real Madrid, our club, and our institution, it kind of tarnishes all of the rest of what he says.

I think the Premier League is the best league in the world.

Stoke City gave me the opportunity to play in the most competitive league in the world, and I have only words of gratitude for their trust and for the way they have treated me.

I've said in earlier interviews maybe I should have stayed one or two more years in Holland.

I like English football because you play all the games from the start of the Premier League to the very last game always 100%. Even when squads in the last two or three games have just been relegated, they still play 100%.

I had an opportunity to play for Paris St-Germain when I was younger and it's important for me to represent a club with that amount of history because of the type of footballer I am.

The trash-talking, I think I would like to take that back. I really didn't want to get known as that, but that was just the way I was, the way I grew up back in Oakland, Calif., back on the playgrounds.

That's my mentality. Just because somebody has fouled me, there is no reason for me to be nasty to him. I try to respect football as much as possible, and when someone is injured, you put the ball out.

There are some athletes who don't like me.