Freddie Ljungberg Quotes

There is a big emphasis at Liverpool to have an academy that brings through young players.

Liverpool give young players a good opportunity.

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.

Arsenal have a history of bringing through youngsters, giving them opportunities, and turning them into world-class players.

I would say the youth systems in Germany have impressed me the most and how they grow their youth players into full professionals.

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

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

I think La Masia is the most important academy in the world. The coaches and the whole club helps you for your future.

It's fantastic for Arsenal, and for English football as well. You've got an English club with a lot of young English talent committing themselves to a club.

It's very important that Manchester United have four or five young players every year from the youth system.

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.

Obviously, everyone looks at whether we bring young footballers into the first team, that's one of the goals. But I wouldn't discard someone who is successful in life, that's big. The hall of fame in the academy should be a wide variety of stories.

There are quite a lot of young players around now with undoubted talent who get stuck in academies at big clubs.

I was very fortunate that I had a great scouting staff at Everton from the academy, because it was those people who got the likes of Ross Barkley and Wayne Rooney when they were young.

Football's about the young players, bringing youth team players through to the first team and hopefully getting the best out of them so they can go on to play for their country.

For me, playing through all the youth teams at Borussia Dortmund was a really good experience because I was able to play against talented opponents at a relatively early age.

I want players to think: 'OK, this has happened now, what is next for me?' That's a very big target because what are academies about nowadays? Is it really just to find one or two players? But what happened to the others? I'm very, very interested in that.

Ajax is the best academy in the world.

I can remember when I was a 17-year-old at Swansea and Terry Yorath and Tommy Hutchison were in charge.

If you are a player wanting to improve then Hibs will be a club you want to go to.

Ajax have a tradition of good football and play 4-3-3, which suits me. They also spend lots of money on youth players with the aim of putting them in the first team.

All of my football, even my introduction, even my coaches, most of them came from Europe, particularly England. So pretty much my whole footballing education and introduction was through English football.

Chelsea is a fantastic place for young kids. They develop you, work you hard, and you can see they have top-class talent all around the world.

Hibs are such a brilliant club, amazing training ground, good coaches, and a great platform for Scottish players to get better.