Unai Emery Etxegoien, born on November 3, 1971, in Hondarribia, Spain, is a respected Spanish football manager renowned for his tactical acumen and success in European competitions. After a modest playing career, he transitioned into coaching, making his mark with Spanish clubs like Almería, Valencia, and Sevilla.

At Almería, Emery earned promotion to La Liga and established the team as a competitive force. His tenure at Valencia saw consistent top-four finishes in La Liga and reaching the UEFA Europa League semi-finals. However, it was at Sevilla where Emery achieved his greatest success, winning three consecutive Europa League titles from 2014 to 2016, solidifying his reputation as a master tactician in European competitions.

Emery’s managerial journey took him to the English Premier League with Arsenal, where he reached the UEFA Europa League final but faced mixed results overall. He returned to Spain to manage Villarreal, guiding them to victory in the UEFA Europa League in 2021, further enhancing his credentials as a top-class manager.

Known for his meticulous preparation, emphasis on discipline, and ability to maximize his team’s potential, Emery continues to be regarded as one of the top managers in football, particularly in European club competitions.

Unai Emery Quotes

01. “For me, whether we win or lose, every match is giving me a lot of information about how to improve.”
— Unai Emery

02. “I like to make a tour round the pitch before games to look at the architecture, the colours in the stadium, the sky, to feel the atmosphere growing.”
— Unai Emery

03. “Implication is a cumulative process that generates union in the team and mutual respect. Either we all work, or let’s just burst the ball.”
— Unai Emery

04. “The best success, for me, is not one trophy. It’s not harmony. It’s when players improve and grow.”
— Unai Emery

05. “PSG has got a solid project. Neymar wants to improve and grow with the club.”
— Unai Emery

06. “I know how you can feel when you are playing under pressure.”
— Unai Emery

07. “I was a second-division B player, and I’ve had to work very hard. I tell the players, ‘The moment we stop working hard on this, as soon as we stop dedicating hours to this, we’ll fall.’“
— Unai Emery

08. “In each profession, you need to feel passion for that in order to give it your best performance. Football is my passion.”
— Unai Emery

09. “A smile is better when you win.”
— Unai Emery

10. “I am very demanding of myself.”
— Unai Emery

11. “I was the coach in Valencia, and this was when Pochettino was finishing his playing career. And we met in Valencia watching the Chile training sessions. And a few months later, he took over as coach of Espanyol.”
— Unai Emery

12. “There’s a decision each match. I decide how we are going to play, and it depends on the opposition 30 per cent, their structure, and 70 per cent is for us.”
— Unai Emery

13. “Our demands are very high, very great, but I want to ask every player every day to give us more.”
— Unai Emery

14. “When I’m asked to define football, I always talk about emotions, the heart, love. It’s something you feel deep down inside when you enter a stadium, raise your eyes, and look at the stands, the fans coming in.”
— Unai Emery

15. “When I was a player, all the pressures I felt created a lot of anxiety in me. I didn’t know how to manage that on my own. I think I was missing someone – a manager, no doubt – who could teach me to control my emotions.”
— Unai Emery

16. “My dad always said you have to value and respect the responsibility you’ve been given. When I coach, I take that responsibility seriously because I know people have trusted in me, and there are thousands of supporters whose emotions are bound up in what we do.”
— Unai Emery

17. “Fans want their emotions to come to the surface. How? By their team transmitting intensity, attacking, scoring goals, competing, winning. That awakens them.”
— Unai Emery

18. “Each player has this quality, this characteristic to help the team as a collective. For me, that is very important.”
— Unai Emery

19. “I know my ambition and my passion and to know how I want to grow up with Arsenal.”
— Unai Emery

20. “To become a good coach, you need to win a lot.”
— Unai Emery

21. “PSG signed me for my CV, for what I’ve achieved in the Europa League, how I’ve grown as a manager, and how I’ve made players grow. I’m essentially here because I have a winning record.”
— Unai Emery

22. “I speak to lots of coaches, but those are private conversations.”
— Unai Emery

23. “The Premier League is at the top, and everyone wants to be in the top leagues.”
— Unai Emery

24. “Before Wenger came, Arsenal celebrated 1-0 and were based on defensive solidity. With Arsene, joy came from attacking, with players of good standing. And the perfect combination was the Invincibles. But over time, only technical quality and offensive freedom were taken care of, losing the defensive structure.”
— Unai Emery

25. “The Premier League is very difficult.”
— Unai Emery

26. “Every coach wants to win, but it’s not easy to do that.”
— Unai Emery

27. “My idea is to know every player and to know, also, the personality of the players.”
— Unai Emery

28. “Every player has their challenge to help the team. They all have a challenge individually and collectively to improve.”
— Unai Emery

29. “I’m not the kind of coach who says, ‘Let’s do a few piggy-in-the-middle exercises and go home for lunch.’“
— Unai Emery

30. “We need to push. We need to have ambition. We need to have desire to improve every day.”
— Unai Emery

31. “I respect a lot the players: their hair and their hair colour.”
— Unai Emery

32. “Arsenal is known and loved throughout the world for its style of play, its commitment to young players, the fantastic stadium, the way the club is run.”
— Unai Emery

33. “I want every player to stay with the mentality and preparation to play together to win.”
— Unai Emery

34. “You need confidence to play under pressure.”
— Unai Emery

35. “For every game we play, I might have spent 12 hours working on the video alone. In an hour, the players have to understand everything you have seen in 12 hours.”
— Unai Emery

36. “I need to learn to smile more.”
— Unai Emery

37. “I need to continue reading books, and I like to learn about different people in the world, different people with success in and outside of football.”
— Unai Emery

38. “I respect Bielsa a lot. For me, he is a special coach. I think the best coaches in the world work in different things, and a lot of coaches, we cannot train like Bielsa. It’s difficult to train like Bielsa. But every coach can learn from different coaches. But with Bielsa, I think all coaches learn something from him.”
— Unai Emery

39. “My first target is not to win: it’s to develop young players with our work. That was my first idea when I started as a coach, because with this work come results.”
— Unai Emery

40. “My first message is clear. Enjoy the challenges of each match.”
— Unai Emery

41. “In my career, I do not stop for news when it’s not true.”
— Unai Emery

42. “Wherever I’ve been, I’ve tried to soak up the essence of the club, the town, and to transmit that to the players.”
— Unai Emery

43. “I live football as passion and emotion.”
— Unai Emery

44. “When we are thinking in an attacking moment, I want the goalkeeper thinking, for that, he is the first. The same when we are thinking defensively – I want our strikers to be thinking, ‘We need to protect the goalkeepers.’ I want those two moments to feel the same for all players.”
— Unai Emery

45. “Success is to improve, grow up, build one team with personality, and then I want to win.”
— Unai Emery

46. “I want to say thank you Arsene Wenger for your legacy. For all the coaches in the world, he is a reference. We learned, I learned from him all the things in football.”
— Unai Emery

47. “Being manager means living in the middle of the media attention, through praise and critics. This is something I live with. It’s intense and very demanding.”
— Unai Emery

48. “It was very risky and quite courageous to write a book about winning when I was still to win my first title. But for me, the one who possesses a winning mentality isn’t necessarily the one who wins in the end but the one who wants to win the most.”
— Unai Emery

49. “I have met Stan and Josh Kroenke, and it’s clear they have great ambitions for the club and are committed to bringing future success. I’m excited about what we can do together, and I look forward to giving everyone who loves Arsenal some special moments and memories.”
— Unai Emery

50. “How do you develop? I think that’s about battling for every title. That’s something that is in Arsenal’s history, and it’s in my history as well. And I want that to continue.”
— Unai Emery

51. “We all need to give 100%, and that’s what I’m looking for from every player and myself.”
— Unai Emery

52. “Arsenal was in a decline. We had to stop this and begin climbing.”
— Unai Emery

53. “Usually, I don’t look behind; every day, I’m looking at the next matches – what’s in front.”
— Unai Emery

54. “Defensive moments are for each and every player.”
— Unai Emery

55. “When I work with players, whether their level is higher or lower, for me the most important thing is to know the person, what is in their heart.”
— Unai Emery

56. “If you play every time, long balls, you lose possession and you lose momentum. I don’t want to be like that.”
— Unai Emery

57. “I think, in football, you need to be competitive. You need quality. You need to be organised and to push.”
— Unai Emery

58. “My concentration with players is the next match, focus only to work for the next match and how we can win.”
— Unai Emery

59. “My first thing with every club I have worked in is to get a personal relationship with the players and then build a professional one.”
— Unai Emery