B. J. Armstrong Quotes

The best thing you can say about any coach is his players play hard for him.

Pellegrini gave me back the joy of playing football. He is like Arsene Wenger: someone who likes to joke, someone who likes to talk and take an interest in your life.

One thing that I like from a coach is that they don't put up too big a distance between the player and the trainer.

You get different philosophies in coaching, usually depending on what position the coach himself played.

Whenever I hear people crying about Kobe yelling at people in practice or wondering whether or not LeBron is best friends with his teammates, I just roll my eyes. You know how many off-court conversations I had with the Zen-Master Phil Jackson in my entire time with the Lakers? One.

In Italy, some managers want distance from the players, the Fabio Capello style, but that is not my way. I am more like Carlo Ancelotti. There are aspects of the players' behaviour I do not understand, but I want them to respect our situation. If they do that, I have a lot of respect for them, too, and I will do everything to help them.

Knowing his coach likes him is more important to a player than anything else. To me, it was important to be able to chew out a player for screwing up and for him to accept it because he knew I liked him anyway.

You can have great players, but if they don't want to be coached, what are you going to do?

My first thing with every club I have worked in is to get a personal relationship with the players and then build a professional one.

The Rockets have a philosophy of what they think their coach should be.

With Zidane he had a lot of relationships with the players, a father-son relationship. Like a friend. Solari does the same, he is being fair to everyone.

Number one consideration is always availability. Then it's about - for me and, I guess, for every player - the connection with the coach, like with any relationship: how you work together, the chemistry on court.

I've had a lot of great coaches. I think Guus Hiddink and Vicente del Bosque are the ones closest to my style. I'm more friendly with the players than a 'formal' coach. I'm not a professor. I'm Roberto Carlos and I want to win with my players and I want them to help me by doing their job well.

In the NBA, you're taking a bunch of different talents, and you're managing them. You have to give them a system; you have to give them a belief. That's why coaches like Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich are so great: because they gave the team confidence in the system and in their ability to execute night in and night out.

I always say that if you stay with a good coach, the relationship between him and his team becomes like a family: he becomes a father with his children.

I had a brilliant relationship with Thomas Tuchel. We spoke a lot, not only on the surface, but really deep about football and our work.

I always get saddled as a player's coach, and I'm happy about that.

My best games for England were under Eddie Jones. Eddie got the best out of me. He understood that I needed an arm around me, needed my tyres pumped up.

I have always been the same player, but Conte knows how to treat players, having played at the highest level himself.

I've always had a good relationship with superstar players. I don't really demand the ball a lot.

So if the players trust the coach, it's not a problem. If the players don't trust the coach, it is a problem, and vice versa.

I like to be able to control which players I'm working with. Because it doesn't matter how good a coach you are if the guys you're working with think they already know it all. You need a response, you need to feel they're trying. I want players who are always striving to improve.

If the players don't trust the coach, it is a problem, and vice versa.

Coaches coach guys on the field. I get to spend time with practice squad receivers and tight ends or a young center who's always inactive on Sundays... I feel really good about having an impact on those guys and their careers.

Assistant coaches become a little bit more buddies to the players than a head coach.