Player Adaptation Quotes

I spent my time chasing rucks and never managing to hit any, so I quickly switched out to the backs.

I've played as a striker all my life. To play on the right or the left is always difficult.

When I was in Germany I never played like this, so defensive - almost a left-back, but that is good for me because defensive work was something I missed in Germany.

But to be fair, if you take players from my era to now, the game has changed and the players have many more shots. They use them differently than we did. The speed of the game has changed.

When you bring a lot of new players in, that is the hardest thing, getting everyone playing together.

The game has gotten a lot faster. I was anticipating changes as far back as when I first came into the league, when the spacing was changing, and big guys were playing in different spaces on the floor. But when that change actually happens, and it happens so quickly, it's just amazing.

Most of the time, I'm playing right-handed players, so it's a little easier to adjust going back to a righty.

In my time at Milan, the club played with a 4-3-1-2 formation, and I was the player behind the two strikers. At Real, I play behind three. There is a greater defensive obligation, but I try to work around the area.

As a leader, you want your team to play as you are.

From Rick Adelman to Kevin McHale, it was a big difference. Things are a lot stricter with McHale, and with Rick, things are a lot different, offensively, defensively. You go from being successful as hell with one coach and being comfortable with the coach to, yes, I was really successful with Kevin McHale, but I just didn't do it the right way.

When I was at Doncaster Rovers Belles, I used to play up front or as a number 10, but when I joined Chelsea in 2015, I was more a midfielder, and over the last few years, I've moved into the back four.

If I don't get the service or if I don't the ball in the box, where I want it, I start drifting into midfield. I go and look for the ball. I try to be important for the team in other areas.

Ancelotti showed in the past, that he can work with different teams and different players.

It takes time; you look at what happened with LeBron, Wade, and Bosh. It took them a year or two to get their legs underneath them and figure things out, and even then, that run was relatively short.

It was only when I got to Tottenham as a youth player that they said, 'You need to be good in the air.' It was made clear I was going be a target man, so I had to start working on my technique.

Explaining why he was forced to cut a utility player: You just got caught in a position where you have no position.

You definitely go through a stage, most coaches do, where you see a good player and you get enamored, you really like what the player does, but then when you put him into your system, it's not quite the same player that he was in another system. He has some strengths, but you cant utilize all those strengths. If you try to utilize all his strengths, you end up weakening a lot of other players who are already in your system.

I think you have to be more flexible to be a pro coach because once you pay the guy the money, whether he can backpedal the way you want him to or whatever, his style of play may not suit you, but you still are going to play him, and he is going to be a part of your team.

The greatest players fit with the team. They play within the team's style, rather than asking the team to change its style.

Neymar is a phenomenon. He adapted to European football very quickly.

I love the game very much, but when you were a certain type of player for a few years, being a front-end starter, that's the way I still think I can pitch. But the body tells you no.

I like Southgate as a manager, what he brings. He always wants the ball and adapts to the players.

Regarding my coaching philosophy, I think it is important to adapt to the team/players and the culture in the country where you are coaching, but to keep possession is a key issue wherever you are.

Players have to buy into your system and be willing to accept the role, you, as the coach, have assigned to them

I think I had the smallest handle around. When I got my bats, I even trimmed them down. I used to scrape them. Some years later when I started getting older, I used to start with a 33 and in the summer it got down to 31 and then probably in September got down to 30.