Per Mertesacker Quotes

Liverpool give young players a good opportunity.

Manchester City has a really good academy, and they're winning titles at all ages.

Balotelli I have known since I gave him his debut at 17.

West Ham have a great academy.

You can never really live anyone else's life, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you've become yourself.

There's natural mentoring that goes on in my life every day.

One of the biggest reasons I like coaching college ball is the kids. I feel I can impact players' lives. I like the fact that they're student-athletes. I like to see those kids graduate.

I run an academy in Spain for young footballers who are released by their clubs and who, in my opinion, deserve a second chance. It is a rewarding job for me, but one that also reveals many of the faults in the English game.

I got to know Coach Wooden at the end of his life.

When you get to 16 at Barcelona, it's the age that you sign your main contract. I was about to sign that, but we knew there were a lot of other options because you always get them from other teams at that time. I didn't have the option to come to Arsenal until I was right about to sign with Barcelona.

There are many types of education: formal education, street education, personal education, experiential education, and I've found that I've had different partners who have a lot of wonderful intellect and education from all different types of sources.

Little details about young footballers catch your eye when you have been around a big club for a long time. At first, it can be minor things, like the way certain young players stand out from the group when the academy lads cross paths with the senior team on their way to training in the morning.

Me being at Coventry, instead of a big Premier League club, probably helped me develop. You don't get put in the academy system, playing Under-18s and Under-23s.

The quality of our academy system is very high, as good as anything in the world. Around the country, lots of people in youth development are keen to get together and find a solution to that 17-to-21 age bracket and how we get those players playing.

My captaincy model was characterised by two distinctive pillars. Proper identification of talent and then ensuring the young finds play fearless cricket.

It is all about the talents of the young players. If they have the talent you have to give an opportunity. If they don't have the talent then, OK, you have to look elsewhere.

In Holland you go into amateur teams, come up through the ranks and are generally spotted for senior or professional football. At 16, I had made it into a men's amateur team, and was picked up professionally from there.

I was impressionable at that age, and my high school coach did such an unbelievable job helping me, so I want to do that for other kids.

I played for Barcelona, for Ajax, where it's important to develop and integrate young talent.

For me, the youth academy has a fundamental role in every club.

Jack Wilshere is a prime example of how things work. He went to Bolton and did really well, then he went back to Arsenal and really kicked on. It is something quite a few of the young boys look at and think, 'If he can do it, so can we.'

If you want to improve the football, of course you need to put attention on the academy, on the school, the facility.

It's very difficult to pick a 17-year-old who's had 10 minutes of first-team football. You're talking about replacing senior players with some 17-year-olds who haven't played Premier League football.

I learned so much during my time at United. Sharing a dressing room with Paul Scholes, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and Ryan Giggs at such a young age was an amazing experience. I didn't play as much as I would have liked, but it was a master's degree in development both as a player and a person.

Playing for Barcelona's academy was a very important time for me and my career, as I learned a great deal here.