Top 55 Vincent Kompany Quotes

The biggest pass for a defender is a pass forward.

I was extremely competitive, so for me becoming a footballer was not necessarily because it was about being the best – it was about winning.

It’s funny: one of the strongest parts of my game today is heading, and that only really developed when I started playing at the professional level. In the youth teams, all we did was passing.

I’ve been living in England for a while, and I am still trying to figure out why we have Great Britain playing the Olympics together and England in football.

Many players win the league for the first time, and they come back, and it’s something you have to feel, to see in their eyes if things have changed or not.

I want to be involved as a fan, as a player, as a manager, as a technical director, as a groundsman. It doesn’t matter. Whichever way the club sees me helping them out, I’ll always be around.

I remember always going to the train station where I grew up, and on the wall was written, ‘The real wealth of a nation is diversity of cultures.’ Where I grew up, that’s what I saw, and that’s what I believe in as well – and I still believe it.

You can’t compare Barcelona and Bayern Munich to Manchester City.

It doesn’t take a lot to imagine what City means to me: it’s been my life for the last almost ten years now. I’m grateful for what the club has given me, and I’ve given everything to the club.

When you come so many times to the end of your career, you understand that you have to appreciate every moment. It’s the story of life.

I’ve been very lucky – I don’t come from a privileged upbringing.

My motivation has always been high. I’ve never doubted myself.

You are not guaranteed to be part of that story if you don’t perform.

Sometimes it goes your way, and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s part of what football is about.

Funnily enough, I think Gary Neville is very interesting… and talks a lot of sense.

I’ve received much from Manchester – a great career at the highest level, unconditional support from the fans through thick and thin, a lovely family, and so much more to be grateful for.

I am 100% Congolese and 100% Belgian. I am very proud of it.

I don’t think you can underestimate the impact of the gaffer.

Chelsea are one of the most exciting teams in the Premier League.

When I was a kid in my neighborhood, there was nobody that supported Belgium. It was impossible and unthinkable because there was nothing they could relate to.

I was desperate to leave Hamburg. The club was awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I had a personal issue with one of the board members. He was desperate to get me out. The first club came calling, and it was Man City.

When I was a kid, it was very common to go places and get racially abused, starting from age six all the way up until you got into the first team.

I have been part of very successful City teams, but it was never at the end of a dominant season that we were able to win a title.

One thing I am sure about Manchester is that people are proud of their history. They are proud of their football, music, the industrial revolution, and all the amazing things that were invented here.

It’s great to know that you can rely on anyone.

Football is so intense you don’t have time to sit back and look at what you have achieved.

I’m an adopted Mancunian. This city has grown on me. I have a wife from Manchester and have three kids who think they are more Mancuniuan than anything else, which is a problem I need to address!

It’s a mistake to think that there’s a difference between someone on the street and someone not on the street.

I kind of almost get enjoyment out of adversity in life.

Maybe from the outside, Belgium looks complicated to understand, but from the inside, actually, every country is complicated.

Only the very best clubs are able to pass the baton of continuity down through the generations.

Within my first year of moving abroad living on my own, my sister got ill – she got cancer – and at the same time, my mum got cancer, and she passed away. I think at that time it was a hard challenge for me to deal with it, but in a way, I have always taken strength out of anything that has come at me.

I don’t think that people understand enough about each other’s cultures any more.

My mum was always more pushing me towards the academic side; she wasn’t really interested in me having a professional football career.

I find football much more powerful than what grown-ups want it to be. It’s a community to me; it’s something very meaningful in the life of many, many people and especially the youth. And, therefore, I think it can bring social cohesion.

A win is a win, whether you do it the difficult way or the easy way.

When City came calling, I researched the club, but when I first came through the door, it was weird: it was a big club but at the same time a small club.

As wealthy as you are, nothing, nothing, nothing guarantees you that through a breakdown of relationship, your kids won’t end up on the streets. It’s nothing to do with wealth: sometimes it can be down to other things, like the breakdown of relationships.

I kind of press pause when it’s a derby, and the season doesn’t matter to me anymore; it’s all about the derby.

When there’s pressure on the ball, you can go man-to-man on your striker; you’ve got the advantage because the ball pressure means it’ll be a difficult pass to play.

Everyone in Manchester in general has a positive mindset.

I’m someone who takes on information quite well, so there’s maybe a path into management. But I see what successful managers have to go through to get to that level – it’s a completely different ball game – so I think I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

I’d rather give up most of my wealth to have the guarantee that I can carry on working for the rest of my life.

There is one thing that is stronger than everything, and it is the colour of the shirt that you wear, and that is who you’ll back.

I love the derby because of the banter and rivalry. If you live outside of Manchester, you can take it out of context sometimes, where you can think it’s all hate, and I don’t think it is.

I’ve been able to come back at a high level which is something I’m happy about, not just stand on the pitch but able to perform as well.

I want my kids to go and see the world and understand they are privileged, but it doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to speak up and see what is happening.

If you talk to a top accountant about his field of expertise, it’s mind-boggling.

We’ve had a humble upbringing. You know, my father came through as a political refugee; my mother comes from a hard-working-farmers family. We’ve had humble upbringing.

Someone might come close to dying, and they’ll enjoy life much more than everyone else. I came close to the death of my sports career, and I enjoy everything coming my way.

Everybody is different. Some players need a lot of rest and just be at home.

If a team prepares well, a good team becomes even better.

I would say Pep Guardiola’s No. 1 quality is that he sees the technical and tactical aspect of a game really fast.

Every club you sign for, they give you the same pitch – ‘We’ve got a big project, big ambitions. We want to achieve this and that. We want to kick on’ – and I just happen to be lucky that City was the one club that didn’t lie about it.

As long as I feel that inner strength, I’ll be all right.