Quotes & Sayings About Football

You have to put all the criticism of this club down to jealousy. United have produced more players who have played for their country, more world-class players and more players who have won European Footballer of the Year than any other team in this country, so we must be doing something right. — Alex Ferguson

I just want to be as successful as I can in football. — Ryan Giggs

For me, I'm lucky to have a lot of close friends - through football or through my family. — Justin Tuck

It was Tottenham at home. I thought: 'Please don't go on about Tottenham, we all know what Tottenham are about. They are nice and tidy but we'll f****** do them.' Alex came in and said: 'Lads, it's only Tottenham.' And that was it! Brilliant! — Roy Keane

A message to the best football supporters in the world. We need a 12th man here. Where are you? Where are you? Let's be having you. Come on! — Delia Smith

I'm not particularly a football fan, but I live in north London, and I can hear when Arsenal score, and it's fantastically exciting. Down the road you can hear the roar. — Mike Newell

Football is one of those games that definitely relates to life in a lot of ways. Everything can be going good, and just like that, you have a turnover. Things are going south, you're going the opposite direction. How are you going to recover from it? That's the beauty in this game. — Torrey Smith

I wish all high schools could offer students the outside activities that were available at the old Harrison High on Chicago's West Side in the late '20s. They enabled me to become part of a school newspaper, drama group, football team and student government. — Irv Kupcinet

Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.
-Knute Rockne — Knute Rockne

We will go back to playing like Manchester United. — Ryan Giggs

Football, basketball, and the Olympic sports all have their problems with banned substances. — Jim Sensenbrenner

My fantasy football team got mixed up in another fantasy and now they're stuck on a pirate ship with a chick in a Catwoman suit. — Dana Gould

The title race is between two horses and a little horse that needs milk and needs to learn how to jump. — Jose Mourinho

To me, having 500 rolls of fabric around is the most calming thing in the world. I think it's what football is to some guys. — Melissa McCarthy

My favorite water cooler topic is fantasy football. I used to make fun of friends for doing it and now I'm obsessed. — John Krasinski

Football is a sport of emotions, and we have to capture that in our films. — Steve Sabol

You can play pickup basketball, but you can't really re-create football. — Peyton Manning

Women will not talk about football unless one of them is in love with a football player, and then suddenly you discover that they know everything that is to be known about it. — Jeanne Moreau

One reason I won't compromise is because I believe honesty helps you win over the long haul. You can win a game tomorrow and lose a team. You can lose a game tomorrow and win a football team. — Lou Holtz

Well, you missed out on some important protocol, Ella. You can't stand between a Texan and his power tools. We like them. Big ones that drain the national grid. We also like truck-stop breakfasts, large moving objects, Monday night football, and the missionary position. We don't drink light beer, drive Smart cars, or admit to knowing the names of more than about five or six colors. And we don't wax our chests, ever. — Lisa Kleypas

Football is something like war. Whoever behaves too properly, is lost. — Rinus Michels

The real triumph of the state occurs when its subjects refer to it as "we," like football fans talking about the home team. — Joseph Sobran

When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer [ ... ], they're really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion. — Susan Cain

I'm not trying to be the highest-paid receiver in the National Football League. I've never received that, and that's not ever going to happen. So I'm fine with what I have, I make good money, and I'm happy about it. — Donald Driver

A football match should be decided by an action of play. Not some contrived process whose end result is to mark a fine player such as Bossis, Baresi or Baggio for the rest of his career. — Michel Patini

I have never seen anything like that before. He must have given his last three managers heart attacks. I like to see those sort of things - as long as they come from the other goalkeeper. — Terry Venables

All good athletes make mistakes; the great ones learn to make that mistake only once. — Raul Lopez

There are few secrets in football. So execute. — Hank Stram

Once you become an owner of a team, you get so much more into the sport and you can't help it. So I really love NFL football now to the degree of following it much more than I did previously. — Paul Allen

It is remarkable that a fist-gnawingly dire England performance still has the power to shock, when in some ways this one had all the exquisite unpredictability of Norman Wisdom approaching a banana skin in the immediate vicinity of a swimming pool...
The England shirt is the precise opposite of a superhero costume, turning men with extraordinary abilities into mild-mannered guys next door. Were Stephen Fry to pull it on, he would struggle to string a sentence together. Were Lucian Freud to slip it over his head he would turn his easel round to reveal a childlike scribble of a cat. — Marina Hyde

The NFL draft is going to be this Thursday. That's a huge night for college players. That's the night they start being paid over the table. — Jay Leno

You made it something special. Most of all, I want to thank the fans for your support not through the great times that we shared on the football field, but for the last 17 years of my life. You have supported me through all times. — Michael Irvin

I grew up in Doncaster and have felt the love for football run through the town; it's for that reason that I have a real personal passion to make Doncaster Rovers a success story. — Louis Tomlinson

The other side of the coin is that fans can panic players into making poor decisions. The more unsettled a crowd gets, the worse the football on show will become - I've seen it a million times. Certain grounds have a reputation. Whenever I've played at Wolverhampton Wanderers or West Ham United , every manager has said "Keep this lot quiet for 20 minutes, and their fans will start getting on their back". — The Secret Footballer

I'm just a seasonal guy. Basketball, football, baseball, boxing, golf. Give it to me all the time. — Jerry Ferrara

Doncaster will hit Villa with fire and broomstick. — John Gregory

We [with husband] try and spend time alone, which is really hard to do. Of course, when you have kids they're like: "Why are you going out? You went out last night ... you can't go out tonight!" so, you try to do that, and you try and ask somebody to please turn off the football game because you can't stand it any longer and you'd rather talk to them.You try to make time for each other where you can. You try to plan a trip away somewhere. — Julianne Moore

Suarez will improve and he will get better. — Jamie Redknapp

An Atheist in Alabama is one that doesn't believe in Bear Bryant. — Wally Butts

That was liquid football — Steve Coogan

Concussion? How the hell can they tell? They're *football* players, for chrissakes! — Dennis Miller

I can see the carrot at the end of the tunnel. — Stuart Pearce

You're a hero one day, you're a villain another day. They say that's football. When a manager does well, they're applauded, when they don't do well, they get the sack. Football is a tough world. Those who watch enjoy it - for everybody else, there are a lot of challenges. — Vincent Tan

I'm going to scare a lot of kids Thursday night. — Jon Gruden

I'm not good for you. I don't know why you make me want you so bad. I was angry with myself when I said all that earlier. I was mad because I wanted you in a way I'd never experienced before. Before you, I just wanted to excel in football and school. I wanted my parents to be proud of me. But now, I want other things too. You get to me in a way I don't understand — Abbi Glines

I think I'm pretty misunderstood, because I'm not just about football. — Nick Saban

To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who hits the line hard. — Theodore Roosevelt

Imagine yourself sitting on top of a great thoroughbred horse. You sit up there and you just feel that power. That's what it was like playing quarterback on that team [the Pittsburgh Steelers]. It was a great ride. — Terry Bradshaw

People say I'll be drafted in the first round, maybe even higher. — Craig Heyward

You don't hear a film director saying 'Money mustn't go out of the industry' to actors. You don't hear a concert promoter saying 'We must make sure that money doesn't go out of our industry' to Elton John. Some people in football seem to think, 'Never mind the players, let's get on with the game.' — Gordon Taylor

The human brain is a marvel. A mere 20 watts of energy are required to power the 22 billion neurons in a brain that's roughly the size of a grapefruit. To field a conventional computer with comparable cognitive capacity would require gigawatts of electricity and a machine the size of a football field. — John E. Kelly III

I could dunk a volleyball in high school. I didn't play football because I knew they were going to put me at a fat-guy position, and I didn't want to do that. I am athletic. — Prince Fielder

I have never asked to be the highest-paid coach in football. I have never asked to be paid like a Super Bowl-winning coach. I have never asked for more power. — Jim Harbaugh

Nanny Ogg was an attractive lady, which is not the same as being beautiful. She fascinated Casanunda. She was an incredibly comfortable person to be around, partly because she had a mind so broad it could accommodate three football fields and a bowling alley. — Terry Pratchett

I'm a very traditional person. The tattoos are about my grandmother dying and they tell the story about my mother and father, my brothers and my sister, my kids. It's pretty much a family tree on my arm with my life in football too. — Timothy F. Cahill

I'm really into football, gadgets, adventurous activities, and cooking new, creative recipes right now - but you'll never catch me being boring. — Harry Shum Jr.

A team that has character doesn't need stimulation. — Tom Landry

What's kind of happening is the conflict over football might be a class conflict where there is a percentage of people who have no relationship to physicality and a percentage of the populace who still does. — Chuck Klosterman

I am basically turning football players into sprinters for a while. When we first talked about it, I didn't know how my expertise could be used. — Ato Boldon

I got into theatre kinda late by some standards, and I sorta fell into it. I had broken my ankle playing football, and my high school was doing a production of 'Barnum.' I could juggle, and my mom really wanted to get me out of the house. She said since I wasn't playing football and couldn't wrestle, maybe I should audition for the show. — Colin Donnell

I'm one of the most competitive guys in the NFL. Believe me, nobody wants it more than me. — Randy Moss

The liturgy is the place where we wait for Jesus to show up. We don't have to do much. The liturgy is not an act of will. It is not a series of activities designed to attain a spiritual mental state. We do not have to apply will pressure. To be sure, like basketball or football, it is something that requires a lot of practice
its rhythms do not come naturally except to those who have been rehearsing them for years. On some Sundays the soul will indeed battle to even pay attention. In the normal course of worship, we do not have to conjure up feelings or a devotional mood; we are not required to perform the liturgy flawlessly. Such anxious effort ... blind us to what is really going on.
We do have to show up, and we cannot leave early. But if we will dwell there, remain in place, wait patiently, Jesus will show up. — Mark Galli

I run angry. Football allows me to take out some of my pain on the field. — Adrian Peterson

She had no idea her view that school funding should actually be used on education instead of football would be so wildly unpopular. — Katie Graykowski

I feel an autumnal Saturday, no matter how beautiful, is wasted if it doesn't find me sitting in on a football game. — Howard Roberts

Back in East St. Louis, tennis wasn't the real thing. If you weren't playing baseball, basketball, football, you were kind of on the outside. — Jimmy Connors

Owen scores and breaks Lineker's competitive scoring record. Although this being a friendly it doesn't actual count, so he hasn't quite done it yet. — John Motson

Nervous? He's tighter than Pat Buchanan's sphincter muscle at a 4th of July soiree on Fire Island. — Dennis Miller

But we had a fantastic coach, Simon Clifford, who runs a British football youth game which teaches Brazilian techniques - which is what we wanted to incorporate into the film. And some of those things we eventually got in. — Parminder Nagra

I normally don't initiate conversations with guys unless they want to talk about certain things - when I'm at the facility, I'm there to play football. If you want to talk about the meaning of life, games, whatever, I'm more than happy to, but when I'm in that building, I'm being paid to play football. Conversely, when I'm not at the facility, that's my life to live. — Chris Kluwe

The crowd think that Todd handled the ball ... they must have seen something that nobody else did. — Barry Davies

You want to do Olympics just like you do a pro football game or a basketball game? Be my guest. Watch it all fade away. — Dick Ebersol

The match against Brazil was football at its best. Both sides had opportunities to win the game. — Michel Patini

I don't understand American football at all. It looks like all-in wrestling with crash helmets. — Sting

So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern ... Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. — George Orwell

In football, the result is an impostor. You can do things really, really well but not win. There's something greater than the result, more lasting - a legacy. — Xavi

In order to play some sports there's quite a big cost implication, whereas football is relatively cheap. All you need is a ball and a couple of jumpers to practise. — Hope Powell

If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people. — William Petersen

Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; — Harper Lee

In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics. — H. G. Bissinger

My saddest decision in football was leaving Paul Gascoigne out of the 1998 World Cup finals. But he wasn't fit enough and once that decision is made, as a manager and a group of players, you forget about who isn't there and focus on the job. — Glenn Hoddle

Greece won the 2004 European Championship with the oldest trick in the book: man-for-man marking. Why? Because nobody expected it - and by the time they knew what Otto Rehhagel's team were about, it was too late. Great football is like great comedy in that way. It is all in the timing. — Martin Samuel

I'm amazed to find those countries are in Europe. — Tony Pulis

Football was never my life. The guys [and] the relationships were my life. I have an ability to relate to damn near everybody. — John Riggins

I learned all about life with a ball at my feet — Ronaldinho

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught. — Ambrose Bierce

The entire existence of the NFL - and of football at any level, for all of that - rests on whether or not the game can keep fooling itself, and its paying fan base, that it is somehow superior to boxing and to the rest of our modern blood sports. — Charlie Pierce

Arsenal have been literally passed to death. — Jamie Redknapp

People with ambition want Paolo Di Canio. — Paolo Di Canio

OMG Danita, it's hopeless out here, I moaned while we sat watching her son's football game. I did not want to laugh, but he looked so cute struggling to run up the field bearing his weight in equipment. As he worked on his Heisman's highlight reel, the
cheerleaders, including his sister Nia, shook their pom-poms as if casting
out demons. — LaToya Hankins

I tried golf for a while, but I wasn't very good at it, so I didn't play a lot of golf. I enjoy all sports, not just football. I like basketball, baseball, and I got into the World Cup. So really, sports in general are my life, and football specifically. — John Madden

Politics is like watching football. Yes, you can see it directly on your screen, but I think a lot of people want to have some understanding of what's happening, why the play is unfolding the way it is, and I think that's where it can help them, not to render judgments but to help people make their own judgments in a more informed way. — David Gergen

Playing in the National Football League, you're told, you know, where to be, when to be there, what to wear, how to be there. Being able to step away from that, I have an opportunity to look deeper into myself and look for what's real. — Ricky Williams

I will do whatever it takes to win a football match. — Stuart Pearce

While American football is very structured and linear and static - where everyone lines up, and there's a burst, and it happens - soccer is like the cosmos. It's like constellations. It's bodies moving in space. It's a very spherical game. — Gabriel Luna

He came in shouting 'goal of the season' - typical Jonjo. He's got that in the locker. — Garry Monk

We are trying to educate players to use their spare time to train for a life after football, which comes to everybody. You can lead a lot of horses to water, but you can't make them all drink. — Gordon Taylor

I liken actors and movies and TV shows to football teams. We all have our favorite ones. — Kristoffer Polaha

The final true artform in what we're talking about is the goal itself. And for us to try and stop that from happening, we're kind of the anti-art. — Kasey Keller

Scotland has the only football team in the world that does a lap of disgrace. — Billy Connolly