Skillful Play Quotes

Growing up, I loved Messi. I love how he dribbles, how he plays the game, it just makes it look so easy and it makes it look so fun.

Men's is at a fast pace and focused on strength, whereas the women's is full of finesse and more skilful - and I think that's what the public have to associate with; male and female football is very different.

I'm attracted to soccer's capacity for beauty. When well played, the game is a dance with a ball.

Get the winners into the game.

I've got massive respect for Marta, I've loved watching her play, and I love seeing what she does on the ball. If I can try and emulate that in any way, then I'm going to be happy with it.

To play with correctness and skill the ends of games, is an important but a very rare accomplishment, expect among the magnates of the game.

I grew up loving Brazilian soccer. What made me think soccer was cool was these guys making soccer look like fun and easy, and they would just destroy people. It was an art. I loved that. And that's the way I learned the game and mimicked a style. It's just so beautiful.

A lot of times, the spectacular play the fans see is not always what I tried to do. It just happens.

I'd have to say Thierry Henry. From the ages of ten to 16, watching him in the Premier League was amazing and he scored all different types of goals - free-kicks, volleys, left foot, right foot. He was entertaining. He's probably the best centre-forward, I think, to play in the Premier League.

Best football player I played against? I think Messi. He killed us.

If we concede three, and I am marvellous on the ball, it is no good.

I tried to nutmeg him. It never came off and he gave me a slap on the back of the head and told me to start behaving

I would watch Gonzalez play and he mesmerized you. It would be like looking into the flame of a fire. You know you couldn't take your eyes off him because you never knew what he would do next.

If, since the start, I'd played well and put in some good matches it would all have been too simple.

The best match I ever played in was the U.K. championship final against John Parrot in 1992. I won 16-14 and I felt like I could pot anything from anywhere.

Portugal have a mix of players and talent, which is what Portuguese players and coaches are often about. It's like play-ground football.

Neymar makes difficult games easy.

Everyone is different but I love to watch that type of football: the clever players, the technical players. The beautiful game.

I'm lucky enough to play with great players.

I want to be able to play fast and exciting snooker like my hero Ronnie O'Sullivan.

I've always thought it was a beautiful game and that the ball should be passed around. I also believe you can create goalmouth excitement without resorting to the long-ball game.

I pride myself on definitely being more than a dunker.

I've come to a point in my career where it doesn't matter if I dribble or nutmeg someone. The only thing that matters is whether I was decisive, did I put the ball in the back of the net today, and did it help the team win.

I always liked watching Ronaldo and Ronaldinho; they were the players who I dreamt about meeting. They inspired me a lot in my own style of play.

What I like about it is the creativity. When I watch good soccer players - the way they have to make a play out of nothing.