Motivation Quote by Paul Ince

Nostalgia hits harder when it comes from someone who knows exactly how rare greatness is. Paul Ince, himself a hard-edged, elite-level midfielder, isn’t handing out a polite compliment here; he’s drawing a line between “top pros” and the once-in-a-generation chaos of Paul Gascoigne. The plainness of the language - “best,” “everything,” “amazing” - is the point. In a sport where players often hide behind careful praise, Ince goes blunt, almost childlike, as if the vocabulary of normal professionalism can’t contain what Gazza was.

The subtext is as much tragedy as tribute. Gascoigne’s legend is permanently split: the outrageous natural talent, the irrepressible personality, the career that never fully stabilised. Saying he “had everything” lands with a quiet sting because everyone knows he didn’t get to keep it. It frames Gascoigne as the ultimate “what if” - not in terms of potential, but in terms of sustainability: the kind of player who could decide a match and derail his own momentum in the same season, sometimes the same week.

Context matters: Ince came up in an English game that prized discipline and graft, then watched Gascoigne make those virtues look small next to imagination. This is a pro’s admission that football isn’t only about systems, fitness, or mentality. Sometimes it’s about the one person who seems to be playing a freer version of the sport than everyone else, and making the rest of the pitch feel like it’s moving in slow motion.