Frank Lampard Quotes

Everything I did on the left I had to learn in a 4-4-2 system, it wasn't natural. To collect the ball on my wrong foot.

Training with Guardiola is good. He's always talking to each player, trying to give them a vision of the style of football he wants to play.

Every time a football player goes to ply his trade, he's got to play from the ground up - from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play.

Playing in midfield is a different ball game. You have to be on the half-turn all the time, have a different picture in your head of what is behind you and in front of you. Playing at right-back is different again.

Normally, midfielders only pass the ball, but I dribble as well.

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.

Usually, the most intelligent player is a midfielder.

I like to control the ball and analyse the game.

Everything we did on the training pitch, we did with the ball. You'll never see a pianist run around his piano. People ask me, 'Why don't you run through the forest, through the trees?' Well, I've never seen a tree on a football field.

I'm a versatile player, I'm a technical player, and I play with my head, but I can progress further.

I spent the best part of 20 years trying to stop people like Chris Waddle from playing. Now I'm convinced that good touch and loads of movement are the way forward.

It's called tactical periodisation because you push the physical and the psychological part together, but with organisation. So you run, but you run all the time with the ball. Always with the ball.

Tuchel shows me how to move and what I could do better. He wants to take me to absolute top level.

When you play eleven a side, you might go through a game with very few touches, but with street football, you're always involved in the game, so it is a great way to improve your skill and to learn how to create and use space, as the pitch is very small.

I make a dribble or a simple pass, knowing that if I lose the ball near the area, the opponent can score. I am aware of what I do on the pitch, but I always do it to help the team. That's why, occasionally, I also boot the ball into the stands.

I was always a little bit compared to Jurgen because my core of working is working against the ball.

As a professional soccer player, I need to get touches on the ball every day, and obviously it's a lot easier to do that with a team than to motivate yourself to do it by yourself.

Everybody in Ajax plays 4-3-3, from seven years old, so they get used to the system. It's all about being a total player.

Tactically, I know how to play on one side even though I remain convinced that I can play better through the middle.

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.

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.

Football is a simple game. It's just very hard to play it simple.

All coaches now look for forwards who not only score goals but also run back and help in midfield.

Things change, although I believe that certain principles - of attacking, entertaining football - should always be protected.