Henrik Larsson Quotes

I only started playing top football when I was 17 and a half.

I don't know where horse riding could have taken me, and it's something I can always go back to when I've retired from football, but the crossroads came in my life when Chelsea wanted to sign me and make me a professional footballer in 2013 when I was 20.

I worked at the number one team in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and now also in England.

I work for the BBC now. I do it because I genuinely love football.

It took me 35 years of being involved at a decent level of football to become manager at a great club like Celtic.

Arsene Wenger asked me to have a trial with Arsenal when I was 17. I turned it down. Zlatan doesn't do auditions.

I need to be playing in the Champions League.

The plan was that I was going to retire and take a job with the American Federation, but Nottingham Forest offered me a contract and there was interest from West Ham and another Premiership club.

At school, myself and some pals, all football-daft, divided up the old English First Division and wrote off to half a dozen clubs each asking for a trial.

In the 21st century when few of us stay in the same job all our lives, I would like to think there was flexibility so teachers could become social workers, or foster carers become teachers.

There's not a long track record of people leaving professional sports to become a software developer.

I tried to make a distinct point that I wasn't retiring - that I was moving on.

I work hard every day to earn more minutes, but I am aware of where I am. I am at the best club in the world, and I am happy at Real Madrid.

Honestly speaking, I was not really interested in a managerial job when my playing career ended.

I played at White Hart Lane against Michael Carrick and Edgar Davids when I was 18.

I made my debut very early and a lot of things happened to me at a young age, but I was there for the best time in Barcelona's history and played with the best players in the world.

I spent my career at big clubs.

I started playing for a team called Cosmos in the Tandridge League before I went for a two-week trial with Palace. They must have liked what they saw.

When I was a little boy, my dream was to play in Spanish football, which I've done, and then it was the Premier League, so it's all worked out OK.

I was one of the first foreign players coming in to the Premier League.

I had a wonderful time in Spain. I had the pleasure of being a league champion twice in a row and playing for a big club like Real Madrid, which gave me a higher profile.

My playing career that was a bit up but mostly down. I played in the Premier League at Southampton but most of my career was in the lower divisions.

Coaches from Celtic actually came to my door but I wasn't interested. I thought I'd get lost in the system. I wasn't ready for it.

I was a promising keeper as a kid and, at 15 and 16, was on the books of Crewe Alexandra.

Everyone wants to play in the Champions' League because that's where it is all happening. That's where you get the A-status for players. It's very important for young players.