James Rodriguez Quotes

The Spanish league is my favourite. The attacking mentality suits my style.

The style is the same at all levels, which facilitates things: bring the ball out from the back, keep possession, work gaps to create chances. It's like that from the Under-15s all the way through. That's the Spanish way, and it has triumphed.

The football in Spain is more about skill and technique. Every team tries to play good football. The physical side, with plenty of running and hard tackling, plays more of a role in the Bundesliga.

Always, even with the U17s in Spain, U19s, we play from the back, and we try to improve on that a lot. So I always enjoy having the ball at my feet.

It is impossible to do it for the whole game, but when you have the ball for most of the game and have players like Samir Nasri, David Silva, Yaya Toure, and Raheem Sterling, they keep the ball so well.

The little bit of my Brazilian side in Azzurri is perhaps to play more with the ball on the ground and have the tranquility to hold the ball. The idea is to have more control of the game.

I prefer to play in Spain than in the Premiership. Spanish football is more like my qualities.

Jorginho is really suitable to the way I like to play. He is a player that has many good sides to him. He wants to work hard, and he's very fast in moving the ball, which is important for us, although there is also Cesc Fabregas, who has the same potential as Jorginho.

I think we've got a lot players in the squad who are more suited to European football at the moment.

The lower you go down the levels, the more players think they need to hang on to the ball to prove how talented they are, but that's not football.

The way Guardiola plays suits me. It enables me to get into space in attacking positions.

Before I came to Barcelona, I only thought about one facet of the game: destroying. My qualities were completely defensive, and I wouldn't take responsibility for organising my team's game, our attacks.

Spalletti made a difference for me. He gives great importance to the details and, at minimum, wants the goalkeeper to know how to play with the ball at his feet.

Italian football is just how I imagined it to be - far more tactical than the Spanish game which is based on technique.

The fundamentals, what I want, which is to take the ball, try to play as offensive as possible and dominate the game through the ball, is the same. I grew up with that; I was a player with that idea, and I am a coach with that idea.

I like teams to control and dominate the ball so the players are hungry for the ball.

If Lukaku is not as good as others with his first touch, then give him a ball that he can handle.

I like the Klopp mentality but at the same time, I like the Pep culture about football because always we need intensity with and without the ball.

I like to be in contact with the ball, have possession, to play.

I'd say my main quality is keeping the ball and my passing.

I've said in the past that I'd like to play in Spain one day, because it is a league that is good technically and where you get a lot of touches on the ball, which is my style.

The Swedish team plays very differently from Arsenal. There is more freedom with Arsenal and they play a passing game.

When you play against a Spanish team, especially Madrid, it is quite an open game.

Arsene Wenger's style of play is the sort of style the Chilean national team has. Therefore, I am used to it.

Each coach you have gives a little something to every player, but the one who changed my game the most was Mancini. He taught me to play more outside the area, dropping me back a bit.