Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I remember, in 2008, and we won the Champions League and the Premier League, and we were having our photos taken with the trophies, and someone said to me, 'Patrice, you don't look happy.' I said, 'It's because we are missing the FA Cup.'
At Burnley, I'd enjoy myself with my missus and friends, but because at Tottenham we're playing Saturday-Tuesday, even Wednesday-Sunday, and with the intensity we play at, playing in the Champions League, we can't afford to have a night out.
To be in the Champions League final is something you need to experience. To win it would obviously be the best experience ever. To be there, the build-up - with the media even, the stadium, travelling, our fans - it's something very special.
You're going to watch football all your life - you're going to watch the Champions League and the Europa League - and I don't have a great feeling when I watch the Europa League, but when I watch the Champions League, I have a great feeling.
When I was young, I told my parents, 'I promise you I'm going to play in the Champions League, and for my first match, I'll invite you to come and watch me play.' Luckily, I was able to do that, and I was very happy. It was a moment of pride.
The Champions League is the one thing missing from my career. When I look at the history of the competition and the people that have taken part, the top, top players have all won it. For many, it is why they have been regarded as top players.
I have been able to fulfil nearly all my ambitions at Chelsea. I have won the Champions League, the League, I have won FA Cups here, but you don't want to stop winning trophies, and being at a big club, you are always fighting to win a trophy.
Tottenham set a points and victories record in my first season, missed out on the Champions League by one point and had a great run in the Europa League. In the second season, at the time I left we had more points than in the previous campaign.
It is always a danger when you have a big game ahead, but there is only one way to prepare well for our Champions League game - and that is to do well tomorrow. Therefore, I feel there is a lot at stake for us tomorrow. It is a massive game for us.
I want to win games, want to win championships. I want to go to the World Cup. I want to win a World Cup. I want to play in Champions League. I want to have fun throughout all of that, and I want my family to be a part of that through the entire path.
I won three FA Cup finals, two League Cup finals, and played in one of United's two Champions League-winning finals. But I lost in a lot of finals, too: the FA Cup in 1995, 2005 and 2007, the League Cup in 2003, and the Champions League in 2009 and 2011.
Porto is my team since I was a young boy. I was in the stands for all the matches. I was too young to go to the Champions League final in 2004, but I celebrated afterwards. I watch all their games when I can. At some point in my career, I want to go back.
I've played in a few Champions League matches and got into quarter-finals - sometimes unluckily knocked out - but you have to prepare like any other football match: you have to play the game, not the occasion. That's been instilled in me since I was a kid.
When I moved from Metz to Monaco, we reached an advanced stage in the Champions League, and we played against Real Madrid. It was one of most beautiful days of my life because I was lucky enough to get a signed shirt from the football legend Zinedine Zidane.
Every player who plays at Bayern Munich knows that Bayern Munich is a particularly special club. Whenever we lose, then it is lashed onto almost immediately by the media, regardless whether it is a friendly or losing the away game in a Champions League tie 1-0.
You can never know if there will be a second Cruyff, someone with a great personality who can grow up and make it into the squad of the club they love. But what is certain is that, in the Champions League, there will be big clubs producing these players forever.
With what I've already achieved in my career - winning trophies and playing in finals, important matches against Real Madrid and Barcelona, winning the Europa League and the Super Cup, and in the Champions League - sometimes you've earned the right to say something.
I looked at it, and it was like, 'Can I push and make the Olympic squad?' It is tough going from 18 players, including Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. I thought that might be a push too far for me. I had no Champions League with Chelsea. I lost my motivation.
My desire at Liverpool was to help get the club playing in the elite because they had been five years without it. We used to talk about it in the dressing room. If Liverpool are not in the Champions League, it is difficult to get the best players to come to the club.
The thing about Champions League football is it can turn on an instant. You can have a very good, solid team over the course of the season, but the Champions League is more like the World Cup, where your fate can be decided in a second and you need a bit of luck too.
We know how important both competitions are, especially the Champions League since it's such a special competition, but we want to win the league too. We take it game by game - concentrate on our league games, win them and then start thinking about the Champions League.
When the club offers you the job, they say what the club expects from you. If the club says to you, 'I want you to win the Champions League, the Premier League, the Carabao Cup,' you say, 'OK, you want to win this and this and this? Can you give me this and this and this?'
Football is definitely present in the tennis world. Given the mix of nationalities that exists in the changing rooms, there's inevitably a bit of a rivalry between the players, especially in terms of the UEFA Champions League or competitions in which national teams compete.
You cannot underestimate Zidane's achievement of winning the Champions League three times in a row - it must have taken superb skills to motivate the likes of Ronaldo, Luka Modric, Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema et al to have the desire to become serial Champions League winners.
With hindsight, if you want to play for Real Madrid, sacrifices need to be made but I was too young to understand. There are things I shouldn't have said or done. It was early in my career, maybe too early. I didn't know it was the only Champions League I'd win, for example.
As a kid, I used to go and wait at the gates of Melwood or look through the cracks in the wall just see if I could see any of the people I was looking up to, who we all wanted to aspire to become, when we were in the Champions League, the likes of Gerrard, Carragher and Alonso.
I want to play in the Premier League, the Champions League, and I want to continue playing for England. If I'm going to do that, I have to play for my club and put in good performances for my club because there are other English midfielders who are doing that in the Premier League.
It's great to see that there are Dortmund fans in every stadium. That is something that motivates you, and in the end, you look forward to games even more, especially Europa League or Champions League away matches, when you see how many fans follow us. It is something very special.
The top clubs in the Premier League benefit very much from the fact that there are six teams on a very high level. They have so many games against each other so that they practically play Champions League the whole year. That helps them very much to persist in the international games.
All of Europe's biggest clubs place the Champions' League as their top priority these days but only one of us can lift the trophy. The domestic league titles are still crucial of course, but I think most players will tell you the Champions' League is the one they want to win most of all.
When I think of Arsenal, my favourite personal memory that I recall is scoring my first goal for the Club - away to Lazio in the Champions League. It was important because when you join a new club, you really want to score your first goal. It's where everything started for me at this club
What puts you in a different level is if you win the Premier League, and you're capable of challenging every season for the Premier League, and if you play Champions League, and you really believe, and you're a real contender one day to win the Champions League. That's my objective in Tottenham.
I remember my first time in the Champions League. I was 18, and it was Arsenal against Milan at The Emirates. The night before, I remember I put my music on my iPod. I was lying in bed, and I listened to the Champions League music. That was my Champions League debut, my first time. It was beautiful.
Women's football will always be different from men's football, but that doesn't mean you cannot still appreciate it. OK, so it might be a bit slower than the men's game, but then League Two football is slower than the Champions League, and it doesn't stop people turning out to see their local teams.
People remember the treble in 1999 as if we only had to turn up to collect three trophies. But on that cup run, we were 1-0 down against Liverpool going into injury time, and we turned it around to win 2-1. And everyone remembers the Champions League final in Barcelona, where the same thing happened.
When you play in the Premier League, say you're playing against a lower-end team, they set up to defend all the time, they set up to block you off. But when you play in the Champions League, all the other teams are used to winning every week, so it's more of an open game, it's more attacking, end-to-end.
There are two things I will always remember. First, a shot against Derby that hit the inside of the post but didn't go in, and we could only draw 2-2. And then the really big chance against Bayer Leverkusen, two minutes from the end of the Champions League semi-final, when I shot over the bar. That hurt a lot.
When you manage a big team like River Plate or Madrid, they are used to winning titles. The people are happy, but they are used to it. When you have an achievement like I had in Villarreal, reaching the semi-final of the Champions League, finishing second in the league, it's more than winning a title. It's more.
The truth is that I don't have a favourite goal. I remember important goals more than I do favourite goals, like goals in the Champions League where I had the opportunity to have scored in both finals I have played in. Finals in the World Cup or Copa del Rey are the ones that have stayed with me for longer or that I remember more.
People always use the word 'obsession' in a negative way, which I'm always amazed by. We are not obsessed in the way that, if we don't win it, we'll just go and shoot ourselves. That's not the case. We are obsessed with the Champions League because this is a great competition to win. In a positive way, we try to search for the victory.
Kevin Hitchcock, the goalkeeping coach at QPR, is an old mate, and I came to work for him on the understanding that I was first choice. If he'd said to me, 'We're also going to sign someone who's won Serie A five times and the Champions League and is one of the biggest names in South American football,' I would have thought twice before signing.
It is always difficult, but when you have been a manager for a while with different teams, sometimes you were only playing once a week, trying to avoid relegation. When you have experience, you know all about the different feelings. Clearly, I would prefer to be fighting for the title or for the Champions League, but you must accept the situation.
When I was at Valencia my wife said that we would win the league. She was right and to mark the occasion she asked me for a new watch. I bought her the watch, but then she said that we would win the UEFA Cup and that when we did she wanted another watch. Now she says that we will win the Champions League and that she will want an even more expensive watch. My wife has a lot of confidence and a lot of watches.
The Premier League is the No1 league in the world in many areas. The events, the shocks, the production, the viewing figures, the worldwide audience are by far the best. Do I think at this moment in time it's got the highest quality levels in Europe in terms of Champions League football and domination of that area? In quality terms it needs to rise again to get to that point where it's by far the best in all areas.