Vicente del Bosque Quotes

As with Cesc Fabregas, some players who go and play for foreign clubs improve on a cultural level. It makes them grow on many levels; intellectually, because you have to learn a new language and adapt to another culture, and on a footballing level too.

Technically he is perfect and he plays so naturally, almost without effort. It’s like when Roger Federer plays tennis, he barely sweats.

I didn’t really want to be the coach who wins but the coach who educates.

Messi or Ronaldo? I prefer Messi because he is more of a street player.

No one knows anything about economics. It’s the great lie of the economists. By contrast in football people might have contrasting opinions, each of which has some validity. But the economists always speak in conditionals – what a mess.

You watch the game, you don’t see Busquets. You watch Busquets, you see the whole game.

The certainty that our football, the football of Spain, is recognised, that’s very important to us – perhaps more important than the successes and the joy that you can create. Football hasn’t always been appreciated, and luckily our football is appreciated now, at all levels of society.

A leader is admired, a boss is feared.

If I were a player, I would like to be like Busquets.

We are in a world that is quite extremist and extremism makes more noise. Normality does not sell.

I realised that the political context had got worse since the 2010 World Cup. I tried to ignore it but I wanted, as a national coach – you may call this Utopia – to make Catalans and Basques feel good about supporting a Spanish side… to unite even the most sectarian and nationalist.

I just wanted to defend football, which is not always easy to do. Those of us who have been in the sport so many years now realise we must protect it and look after it. I was speaking about football, what it means. It is our profession, it has been our lives, and we must take care of it a little.