Oliver Kahn against Valencia in 2001 – this was the first Champions League game I remember. I was a Bayern fan.
One needs to be of a mindset that to be champions of the world anyone can be beaten, and that’s what we want, what we dream about.
I don’t think I am a great. I think I’ve done nothing. I’ve done nothing in soccer. I’ve won leagues, but I haven’t won the Champions League, the World Cup, the Euro. Winning the Euro in France, that wouldn’t be bad.
Real Madrid are one of the main teams in Europe. They are a team which has won the Champions League the most times, a very good team, and known throughout the whole world as well.
The Champions League is the most important competition; it’s fundamental to be involved in it.
Bayern Munich made it possible for me to achieve the greatest wish of any footballer: Winning the Champions League.
The Champions League is massive. I’ve had so much experience. I’m only 23, and yet I’ve played so much in the Champions League, and not many players my age would have had that experience.
It’s pretty hard to predict anything when talking about the Premier League because of the liabilities the teams and the players have when playing in the Champions League and the other cups, too.
There is no need to hide the fact that the Champions League is very important to us. We want the Scudetto, Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana, but the Champions League is very important.
We are the only class in history that has been left to fight its battles alone, unaided by the ruling powers. White labor and the freed black men had their champions, but where are ours?
The Champions League is more important than the Scudetto.
It’s always good to be in the Champions League.
The most important thing is to win the Champions League because you can win the Ballon d’Or and not stay in history.
To play in the Champions League is everyone’s dream, and I would like to do so. I won’t deny it.
The Champions League without Milan is not the Champions League.
I think we should not accept and tolerate racism anywhere, in any game, whether it’s a friendly game or a World Cup final, or it’s a Champions League final.
Qualifying for the UEFA Champions League group stage was a big thing in Israel.
The best teams in Europe play in the Champions League, and when you face them, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Klopp never wanted us to get carried away. He never wanted us to think of ourselves as champions, even though we were top of the league. He wanted us to focus on ourselves, not to listen to what people were saying about us. It was all about the next game and only the next game.
I started chess around the age of seven. I was inspired by the game, but soon legends like Kasparov, Karpov, Fischer, Anand and many other world champions captivated me.
People used to say that I thought I was Gareth Bale, and that’s not the case at all. I’m nowhere near that level. The guy has won so much – Leagues, Champions Leagues, scoring worldies in finals.
The Champions League and the Premier League are now both huge, but the tradition and history of the FA Cup is still very special.
At Juve you were first or you were nothing. If we went out of the Champions League it was a tragedy. I saw team-mates who did not eat for a week.
I think you are wrong if you play a Champions League game, and you don’t find motivation.
Our objectives are everything – the Champions League, La Liga Santander and the cup.
I was like ‘You know what? I’m training with these champions. Guys like Georges St-Pierre, Rashad Evans, Nate Marquardt… Let me give this MMA thing a shot.’
Every player wants to play in the Champions League.
The Champions League is massive for a football player. There is nothing above it when you’re playing for a club.
It’s Champions League nights when our fans roar us on even more, lose their voices, and we really notice it. That’s what the Champions League means to me.
Don’t get me wrong, by the time I finish I will have had a fantastic career. But you do sit there sometimes and think, ‘could I have gone higher? Could I have been playing in the Champions League?’
My career progressed slowly. Real slow at a time. The irony of it was I had the best part of my career between when I was 45 and 49 years old. That’s when most people are in their twilight, waiting to get to the Champions Tour. And that’s when I made most of my hay.
I believe the Champions League has all that magic because it gathers all the best European teams, and that gives you the feeling of trying to be the best. That’s why the Champions League has this special kind of emotion.
The thing I remember most about Tottenham is when Van der Vaart played for them in the Champions League. In Holland, people follow Tottenham Hotspur.
Bayern is always a team that can win the Champions League title in Europe.
If you become world champions, there is nothing to top that. It’s the result of many years of work, good decisions inside the association, good training and good players.
You are never relaxed in England. You have a tough league, the Champions League, the FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
If you are hoping for a Champions’ League final or winning a title, it’s the same. You are working for a result.
The way a top team develops means that once you have won the league title, the natural step is to try to win the Champions League.
Being a young kid from the hood in Paris, growing up in poverty and then scoring the goal that took Chelsea to the Champions League semi-finals, that felt like a great achievement.
If you reach the Champions League semifinals three times in a row that speaks for itself. To win this competition isn’t easy.
In the Champions League, if you can win at home, the draw away is priceless.
In the Premier League, you never know who is going to win or who will be champions. It is always a surprise.
It’s the Champions League that really gets the Barcelona fans buzzing.
A club like Tottenham are up there with the top teams, and I think they have to be in the Champions League.
That’s why it’s hardest to win a Premier League instead of a Champions League – because it’s over 38 games. You can’t play well in every game, but it’s about grinding out results.
It don’t matter if I got a broke hand, got a torn muscle: I’m going to fight like heavyweight champions do.
I remember for my Champions League debut against Anderlecht, my dad flew 27 hours to reach that game and he was crying all 95 minutes!
Of course it would be nice to go to another Champions League final and hopefully win it again one day, but for me, the Premier League is the best trophy to have.
You have to give 100 percent in the Champions League, as you’re up against the biggest teams.
Always, against top teams, if you play well, and especially in the Champions League, it’s good.
If you play well in the Champions League you get your name out there.
I want to play for a club that fights to win the Champions League title.
Since I was a little boy, I’ve watched the Premier League and seen Liverpool playing in the Champions League on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
My worst moment in football was losing that Champions League final to Barca in Rome.
To win the Champions League is huge for everyone. I don’t care about the rest.
One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian.
When you’re a kid your dream is to be decisive in a Champions League final, and I managed to do that.
I remember my first Champions League final in 1996: Juventus-Ajax. That’s the clearest memory from my childhood.
The world needs champions. Too many people still find the path to opportunity closed to them. Too many still find unnecessary obstacles to education, to housing, to the full and free exercise of the right to vote.
In Cuba we use our champions to promote the sport.
I retire from competition with great pride at having had a positive impact on my sport. I intend to keep training and practicing martial arts for as long as I live, and I look forward to watching the new generation of champions carry our sport into the future.
We will give everything for the FA Cup, Champions League and Premier League.
English football is changing: the champions don’t play a ‘typical’ English style, for example. But in general, it’s quicker than in Spain: more counter-attacks, more open, more direct.
I always think when you’re in the Champions League, as a player, as a fan now, you’re in that to come up against the biggest teams and the biggest names – that’s what you want.
When I started watching matches, it was those of Marseille. After that, it was Lyon. I went to see them all the time in the league or the Champions League with my dad.
I want to give some advice; to win you need champions who are used to winning and who have the winning mentality.
French football must go as far as possible in the Champions League.
Regaining the Champions Cup is not going to be easy.
The Champions League, for me especially, is the most beautiful competition.
