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Spanish star Michel Salgado motivates Dubai clubs

Former Spain and Real Madrid footballer Michel Salgado began his motivational tour of Dubai’s Etisalat Pro League clubs on Monday, with his first stop coming at Al Wasl. Salgado is visiting all five Dubai-based clubs in the Etisalat Pro League – Dubai, Al Ahli, Al Nasr and Al Shabab in addition to Al Wasl – as part of Dubai Sports Council’s Dubai Professional Players’ Knowledge & Information Sharing Programme: ‘Comparing the professional player of Europe and UAE’, held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Sports Council. Having won two European Champions League and four Spanish La Liga titles during his playing career, Michel Salgado is able to offer an enlightened perspective on what makes a successful team and what individual players can do to improve their professionalism and performance. 

 

Speaking at his first session at Al Wasl on Monday morning, Salgado told the players: “You must consider your Club like your home, and your teammates as family, and you create that winning spirit together.” Salgado inspired the players by drawing on his experiences of playing with some of the world’s most celebrated footballers, adding: “The incentive may be different from player to player at different times; for example some players may sometimes be more motivated by material or financial benefits, but the ambition to win and achieve titles is the strongest motivation, and is exactly the motivation I saw in players like Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo and Ronaldo – my former teammates at Real Madrid – who were indeed wealthy, but their overriding drive was always to win games and championships.”