“I like English football; it’s a very important league. I like the crowds in England, too – they are noisy and create a special ambience.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“If you give time and space to players, they will make good decisions and score goals.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“To be the coach of Real Madrid is an honour, and every coach has pride in that. However, one is also subjected to a wide range of critiques – some just, but others not. But when the criticism deteriorates into insults, which has happened many times, I don’t appreciate that.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“My first experience out of my country was Ecuador. That was a very good option for me. To know how you can develop your coaching style or your personality being away and being alone, that is not easy.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Life is like a building: it is impossible for anyone to achieve anything without a strong foundation, and the family is the most important foundation you can have.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“You need the desire to demonstrate the way you can play, which team you are.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Playing every day with important players is good for a young player: you are always learning from experienced players.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“When you are 21 years old, and you work as a good professional, you must improve.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Lionel Messi is very difficult to contain.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I don’t believe in projects of more than three years.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I didn’t have a voice or a vote at Madrid.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I can’t get anything out of an orchestra if I have the 10 best guitarists, but I don’t have a pianist or a drummer.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“For some players, it is a dream to play at Madrid.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I’ve always liked technical, creative central midfielders with the capacity to score goals, such as David Silva, Samir Nasri, and Santi Cazorla.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“When I live in a country, I always try to learn about the country – not just England, the U.K. as a whole – so I will stay here some days to do something different.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“It’s very difficult to have the same motivation in the season after you’ve won two trophies.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“The Premier league is better with Mourinho.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“This hunger of triumph is fundamental in order to get results.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Football is so difficult to predict.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I never knew a manager that didn’t have pressure.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“To lead a group of players is to lead a group of people with different ways of thinking. You have to be prepared for that and know more than just about football. You have to speak a lot to the players, have to make them feel what you expect of them. Have to convince them. Therefore, it’s very important for a coach to have a life outside football.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“When I started to be a coach, I expected a lot – maybe too much – in terms of physical approach, tactics, and technique. There was too little emphasis on human relationships.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I’m not obsessed by football.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“When you are in the biggest clubs, and you are fighting for the best players with a lot of money, maybe the work of a sporting director is not so difficult.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“You create a big-club mentality with the trust of the players, the trust that the team will get results, and then, when results are not good, the trust to continue with your idea.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“A lot of young players relax a bit when they reach the first-team, thinking they have reached the finish line, but really, it’s just the beginning.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“For me, the youth academy has a fundamental role in every club.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Samir Nasri is a very technical player who always made the difference playing as a midfielder when he is fit.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I cannot tell everyone what they must say or what they must not say. Everyone is the owner of their own words.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I think that every player in every team must have an ambitious mind.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I am very lucky to have a wife who supports me, but the absence from my children was difficult from the moment I took a very difficult decision to have a career which requires so much dedication and focus, just like raising children.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“We can all get better. We all have to think about how to improve ourselves, no matter how good we are.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“If you do not know each player individually, one on one, it is impossible to form a team from 22 distinct personalities, different languages, different home countries, but with one common aim.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“As a manager, I won eight trophies in Chile, Ecuador, and Argentina.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“When I made the transition from player to coach, I evaluated myself and saw that I needed to improve my personality. I would fight with players – literally. I was 35, and you can’t be like that; you have young players to guide. You have to transmit calm.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Any coach who’s managed a big club in Argentina can manage anywhere.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“In Spain, I’d taken Villarreal to league runners-up and the quarter-final and then semi-final of the Champions League.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“What I don’t want to be is the most important person of the club. If we win a game, it was the players who played very well.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“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.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“You will never run more than the ball. The players that don’t lose the ball are the most important in the team, and good players decide the game.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“There are lots of different ways to play football; I choose one in my career. I believe in that one.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“First, as an owner of the club, you must choose a style of football. After that, you must find the managers that will work with the young players in your team in that style. After that, you must put a manager in the squad with the same mentality.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Technical players make the game easy. They have a view of the pitch different from other players. They put the last pass for the strikers. They are the players that lose two or three balls in a year.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“The most difficult thing is football is to give the ball to a player that has the same colour shirt.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I am very self-critical about what I do. Always.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“First I was going to be a football player, then after that try to study medicine or engineering. But it was very difficult to do medicine, so I did engineering.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I learned English, French, Italian.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I went to Villarreal for 30% less than I could have earned in Mexico.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I am sure that the important managers always want to work here in the Premier League.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“You always depend on what the owners think of the job you are doing.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I enjoy England and enjoy the Premier League.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I enjoy working, and I enjoy working every day – and it is for that reason that I don’t so much like the idea of working with an international squad. To have every day on the pitch is important to me.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I always speak with all the players during the week before every game we play, because it’s important for them to know what I think and for me to see how they are before the game.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I had no interest in continuing with Real Madrid in the way that we were working.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“From a personal perspective, I try never to go back to a club where I have already coached.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I like new experiences. It’s one of the reasons I went to China.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I would be happy to go back to Spain at the right moment.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“It’s not my duty to respond to what Mourinho says. I don’t know the way he thinks.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“It is vital to maintain possession and to win it back as soon as possible, because if we win it high up, then the opposition has to run 70 metres.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“We cannot try to play in a manner that does not correspond to our players’ characteristics.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“The best place for Cristiano is not out on the wings. The best for him is to play in every position.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“As for Kaka, he is a superstar… someone who can change the tempo of the game as well as the team.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“The Bernabeu faithful doesn’t want a similar style to Barca. They want a more direct style of football.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“The idea of developing football and winning trophies at Real Madrid does not fall in line with how I see football.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“The pressure at Real Madrid is independent of the outcome of other teams and is always the highest.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“When you win something, if you don’t have that mentality that comes from a tradition of always winning, the built-in demands of a big club, there’s always a small dip.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“It is impossible for you to be remembered as a great team if you do not win the Champions League.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I think that, as a manager and as a player, you must always be motivated.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“It’s very important for the mentality of the players to always try to be a winner, to try to win as many titles and games as you can.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Always at Goodison Park, Everton is a very good team.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Cristiano’s strength always gives the team a boost in every way.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I always give a lot of importance to the cups.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I have enough problems trying to manage a team, without managing the FA.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I do not think my career is over after being at Real Madrid.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I’ve always said that I love the Spanish league.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“When you need to renew your contract, you must demonstrate why they are renewing your contract.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“In the Premier League, you can’t play against anyone if you don’t play at a high pace.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“If you want to say I was a disaster of a player, then say it. But give me another disaster of a player who played almost 500 games across 14 years.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“English football gives other leagues an advantage. There are some traditions you can’t change, I realise that. Boxing Day is non-negotiable. But you can’t play nine games in December and nine in January. You have to stop at some point.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“It would be very difficult to find a more complete player than Milner. There are players who are better technically. There are quicker players. There are players who head the ball better. But show me a player who does all the things that Milner does well, and there isn’t one.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I’ve never had a problem with pressure because I believe in my own ability.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I’ve always dreamed of managing Real Madrid.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I love pressure; to manage such a big club as Manchester United is very good.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Some big teams prefer to be very strong defensively and have two, three, four counter-attacking players.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I will never play to just score one goal, then run behind the ball.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I think football must be attractive for fans, and that means scoring goals.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I’ve changed my character 100 per cent; if not, I could never have become a manager.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Maybe other managers would see their team score one goal and then prefer to go back and counter-attack, then try to score the second goal. A lot of those managers are the best managers at the moment, but for me, it’s very important to continue the way I play.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“What I want is to recover the ball as near to the other box as we can, and when we have the ball, play.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I never put myself in negative situations unless they happen.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“In the Champions League, you can have a bad game and go out in the semifinal, and nobody remembers what you did.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I always say it must not be an obsession to win the Champions League. It’s a very important title and beautiful to do it. But you must not try to win the Champions League and lose focus on the Premier League.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“For me, Ramos is a full-back, but he has the versatility that allows him to play in different positions without no problems.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“As a manager, you worry about any different issue you have in your squad.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“When you don’t have any worries, it is better, but things happen in football, and we know we must try to resolve as soon as we can.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“Yaya is a great player, a top player that plays in every part of the role.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“As a young player, the more games you play and the more you work every day with good players, of course you will improve.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“There can be very cheap players that play very well, and maybe, expensive players, they don’t do so well.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“I think every team needs change every year.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
“It is never a problem to have good players on the bench.”
― Manuel Pellegrini
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