Top 50 Vincent Kompany Quotes

Once you achieve a goal and you are on that high, you have to consciously pull yourself in to say, ‘I need to have the same hunger and desire as when I had nothing.’ That’s the hardest thing to do in life. That is getting challenged every single day once you win titles.

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.

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

I’m kind of the wrong guy to bet against.

Over the past decade, I’ve been lucky to have witnessed and played a part in Manchester City’s rise as a club and a brand.

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

Once I finish playing, I’m still a Manchester City player for the rest of my life. That won’t change.

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.

Brussels is sort of a mini London in the sense that if you think about putting a football pitch in London, people laugh at you. There is just no space.

You win the mental war when you have success. You lose it when you don’t have success.

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.

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.

You can’t win every game playing fantasy 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.

Being a successful team is maybe not enough. It’s about setting a standard, not just for ourselves but also for the youth that is coming through at Manchester City.

I’ll be connected with City for the rest of my life – as a fan, as an employee, as an ambassador. Whatever City decide or I decide, it’s not something we can undo. We’re tied to each other for life.

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

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.

Youth is always the future of any country.

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’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!

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

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

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 think, mainly, you always look to keep your strong points in the team.

We can’t always wait on the government to sort out all issues. I think they set policies, they set the rules, but we all have a duty to help as much as we can.

I just enjoy training. I enjoy being there, enjoy coming into games and training sessions where I can feel that I’m as good or better than the players I have to play against or with.

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

Everyone in Manchester in general has a positive mindset.

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.

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.

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

I have dreamed of Brazil all my life. As a child, I had videos of Brazil, of their World Cup wins, of Pele, and of all the big players.

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.

Our generation has been described as a golden generation. I hate that term.

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.

I always believe that luck and faith will be on my side more than the other side.

What we experience in the Premier League is so intense.

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

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

On any longball, people try to outjump each other. I don’t mind a big jump, but to be honest, the only thing you have to do is fight for the spot where the ball is going to land.

Pep’s tactical and technical assessments are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I think that’s why people enjoy to see him fail.

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.

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

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’m not worried about getting extra game time, extra minutes, and all this kind of stuff that so many other players will worry about.

Guardiola has come to City with a very unique style. And he wants to continue that philosophy. We had to work to adapt to his style.

Knife crime isn’t an issue that’s going to go away just because of repression and police action. Of course we need to support the forces, but it’s linked to prevention, and prevention often comes through education.