Drogba: "You see the look in his eyes and you know he's ready!"

‘Some players don’t understand when to raise their game, Didier does. He can really take it to the next level. Emotionally, you can see the difference, the step up. You see the look in his eyes. Quite literally, he changes, and you know he’s ready for it.’

Eddie Newton.

‘He goes into his pre-match routine and he gets more and more pumped up and you know he’s in the zone. When we played Barcelona, when we played Liverpool at Wembley, he just gives everyone around him such confidence. He’ll come through his ritual and then you can’t even speak to him. You can see in his face, he’s gone.’

John Terry.

‘He’s not Usain Bolt, but he’s fast enough and so powerful that, even if you catch him, you can’t get a foot in to make the tackle. You would have to run around him and you haven’t the time to do that. So he’s unplayable. In certain positions, there is literally nothing you can do.’

Jamie Carragher.

What he does, it doesn’t just happen. He works hard at the gym, he puts extra time in at training on free-kicks. You see young lads who want to be like him, or Frank, but they don’t want to put in the same time and effort. He wasn’t born this way, he delivers an incredible amount of work to do it, but when you see how he seizes the moment in big games, it’s worth it.

William Gallas is a top centre half, but did you see what Didier did to him when we were playing Tottenham in the FA Cup semi-final?

John Terry

You can make all the best plans, but then he’ll do something to which you have no answer at all. And you’ll never have an answer. He’s just bigger, or faster, or harder to manoeuvre. And that is the way it will always be.

And Bayern Munich know that, too. And that’s what makes him…’Unplayable.’

Jamie Carragher