Great Soccer Quotes & Sayings

All that proves is that most of the world is too poor to build bowling alleys, golf courses, tennis courts and baseball fields. There's hundreds of millions of poor people out there who still ain't got indoor plumbing, but that don't mean there's something great about an outhouse. Soccer is boring. I've never seen a more boring sport. — Mike Royko

I am the same person as always and I have the good fortune to play in a great team. It was an historic year for Barca and for me but it's thanks to the work of everyone. — Lionel Messi

I grew up in a town with a great wrestling tradition. Then I was a team sport queen in high school; I played softball, volleyball, and soccer. Oh, and I also did ski racing. — Aimee Mullins

I had great relationship with the Hispanic - we had a lot of Hispanics in the school actually from different countries, Venezuela, from Brazil, and they all played soccer, and I was on the soccer team, and I developed great relationships with them. — Donald Trump

I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. I don't want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism; and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master. — Theodore Roosevelt

We've had some great players at this club in my 20 years, but he's up with the best. — Cristiano Ronaldo

One day the UN Secretary General proposes that, in the interest of global peace and harmony, the world's soccer players should come together and form one United Nations global soccer team.

"Great idea," says his deputy. "Er, but who would we play?"

"Israel, of course. — Mark Steyn

I think Charlie George was one of Arsenal's all time great players. A lot of people might not agree with that, but I personally do — Jimmy Greaves

English fans love spectacular players like Alan Shearer and that is exactly what United have now signed. He has magic in his boots. The first thing you notice about him is that he is incredibly quick and very, very powerful for such a young man. He has great, close control and his technique is excellent. He believes he can do anything with the ball, and that confidence makes him very special indeed. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Stonehenge had an aura but it was also just stone. Then in the sixties, it became a great hedonistic, hippie, druid, rock-n-roll party site. There are amazing pictures of people up on the stones going wild and that's the image I recreated for my model of the project: full access to everyone. I even invented a Stonehenge soccer team that uses spaces between the stones as goals. — Aleksandra Mir

Like representative government, soccer has been imported from England and democratized in the United States. It has become the great social and athletic equalizer for suburban America. From kindergarten, girls are placed on equal footing with boys. In the fall, weekend soccer games are a prevalent in suburbia as yard sales. Girls have their own leagues, or they play with boys, and they suffer from no tradition that says that women will grow up professionally to be less successful than men.

'In the United States, not only are girls on equal footing, but the perception now is that American women can be better than American men,' said Donna Shalala, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 'That's a turning point, a huge breakthrough in perception. — Jere Longman

We all want to play great music all the time, but if that is not possible, you have to hit as many right notes as you can. — Jose Mourinho

He's got great credentials by winning the World Cup but he did it with Brazil - my granny could probably have managed Brazil to World Cup success. — Gary Lineker

Watching soccer is my main hobby, really. I'm no tactician or coach, but I enjoy watching the free flow of it, the different styles, and the histories behind clubs. Like Barcelona vs. Madrid - it's not just a soccer game; it's a geopolitical struggle. There are great storylines and no commercials. — Andrew Luck

I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time. — Ann Coulter

you are brought face to face with the great question about the soccer coach: Does he really matter? It turns out that coaches or managers (call them what you like) simply don't make that much difference. — Simon Kuper

When you see someone like him coming on, with his great pace and desire to take someone on, it is a boost. — Cristiano Ronaldo

He does things I have never seen from any other player and it really is marvellous to watch. It takes a great player to grab the bull by the horns and make things happen, but he has done it repeatedly. He has been even better than people here thought he would be and that's saying something. — Cristiano Ronaldo

My youth coach told me he'd got these two great 15-year-olds. I told him I don't want to know, because by the time they're 18 I'll be dead. — Martin O'Neill

Some fans keep booing and whistling at me because I'm handsome, rich and a great player. They envy me. — Cristiano Ronaldo

If you're going to be a footballer, be a great one.If you're going to have a dream, dream big. — Alex Ferguson

Someday when you're twenty, maybe, I'll see you again. You'll be this hot soccer star at some great school, with a million guys more interesting than I am chasing you down. And you know what? I'll see you and I'll pray you want me still. — Ann Brashares

Britain has bred many great explorers, but they seem to get so little coverage compared to soccer and rugby players. — Lewis Gordon Pugh

That's great, tell him he's Pele and get him back on. — John Lambie

Leeds is a great club and it's been my home for years, even though I live in Middlesborough. — Jonathan Woodgate

The most direct path to achievement whether you're an entrepreneur, a company executive, or a pro soccer player is to be a great performer and a great team member. This is also the secret to a meaningful career and self-fulfillment. — Maynard Webb

We don't sell a car, we sell a dream. We are Italy's national team. There are many great soccer teams in our country, but there is only one Ferrari. — Luca Cordero Di Montezemolo

Soccer was the first sport that my parents put me in, and ultimately, all the parents kind of came over to my mom and were, 'We think Channing would be better at football ... We love him, he's really great, but he's kind of hurting our children.' I was just a little wild. — Channing Tatum

Michael Sanchez and I grew up in New Jersey, not far from here, playing soccer together. When I was in high school, I worked to start an organization to help senior citizens, which I learned a great deal from. — Andrew Shue

Sport has the power to inspire and unite people. In Africa, soccer enjoys great popularity and has a particular place in the hearts of people. — Nelson Mandela

I don't get what's happening to Jose Mourinho of late. He's lapsing into the kind of Portuguese moroseness you get from staring at the Atlantic horizon and imagining you're the last place in the world, while listening to endless renditions of the fado. His latest line about 'everyone hates us and we don't care' sounds like vintage Joe Kinnear in the great days of the Wimbledon Crazy Gang. — Peter Chapman

When football stars disappear, so do the teams, and that is a very curious phenomenon. It is like in the theatre, in a play, where there is a great star. If the star is not well, the whole cast suffers. — Pele

I think Sepp Blatter is in danger ... or has reached a point now, where he is being mocked within the game. Whether he's getting too old, I don't know. But things can happen to people in power. Look at some of the despots in Africa ... From a position of great power, he has uttered so many ridiculous statements that he is in danger of seriously damaging his credibility. — Alex Ferguson

Every club he's been to has had great injury crises. Every club. And it's always hamstrings. — Eamon Dunphy

The majority of women in Welmont with children Charlie's age never miss a soccer game and don't earn special good mother status for being there. This is simply what good mothers do. These same mothers herald it an exceptional event if any of the dads leave the office early to catch a game. The fathers cheering on the sidelines are upheld as great dads. Fathers who miss the games are working. Mothers who miss the games, like me, are bad mothers. — Lisa Genova

You don't play triathlon. You play soccer; it's fun. You play baseball. Triathlon is work that you can leave you crumpled in a heap, puking on the roadside. It's the physical brutality of climbing Mount Everest without the great view from the top of the world. What kind of person keeps coming back for more of that? — Chris McCormack

I've seen first-hand the great enthusiasm Portland has for soccer; it's a soccer-smart fan base that generates an incredible atmosphere. I am very much looking forward to the first season of Thorns FC. — Cindy Parlow Cone

The great thing about him, is that he will not quit. — Cristiano Ronaldo

He is as tough as anything. You can crack him once, but he won't let it bother him. He's back on his feet in no time and getting on with it. He is a strong character and a great sight when he's heading for goal. — Cristiano Ronaldo

That which interests most people leaves me without any interest at all. This includes a list of things such as: social dancing, riding roller coasters, going to zoos, picnics, movies, planetariums, watching tv, baseball games; going to funerals, weddings, parties, basketball games, auto races, poetry readings, museums, rallies, demonstrations, protests, children's plays, adult plays ... I am not interested in beaches, swimming, skiing, Christmas, New Year's, the 4th of July, rock music, world history, space exploration, pet dogs, soccer, cathedrals and great works of Art. How can a man who is interested in almost nothing write about anything? Well, I do. I write and I write about what's left over: a stray dog walking down the street, a wife murdering her husband, the thoughts and feelings of a rapist as he bites into a hamburger sandwich; life in the factory, life in the streets and rooms of the poor and mutilated and the insane, crap like that, I write a lot of crap like that — Charles Bukowski

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

The one great thing about football is that whatever happens it will manifest itself on the pitch. If it's right, you'll see it on the pitch, if it's wrong, it will be on the pitch. In business you can get fellas who are doing crooked deals and nobody knows anything about it. There is an ultimate honesty about football. Politics is part of the lying game, I wouldn't trust any of them. In football you can hide for a while, but ultimately the truth comes out. I always loved that. — Johnny Giles

It's a great start, but we have a tough group: we have big teams like Denmark, Armenia and Serbia, so starting here gives us a good opportunity to fight until the end. — Lorik Cana

Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man. — Pele

It is great that soccer can unite people for one day. It is something politics has often tried, and we were able to do it today. All people became brothers. — Otto Rehhagel

Soccer matches in Europe have riot police. Metal is just people sloshing around drunk and sloppy and having fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. It is a great outlet for aggression. — Chris Reifert

Soccer is a great game, and the rich variety of styles and passions that come with being truly global makes the World Cup a nonpareil event in the universe of competitive sport. — Serge Schmemann

As a footballer's wife, I take great exception to the way we are portrayed in Footballers' Wives. — Karren Brady

We played a whole season unbeaten but you did not see me every week jumping on the tables. Once it's over it's over and you do in the next one as well as you can. Plenty of managers who have won the Champions League will not be considered great managers. — Arsene Wenger

When I wrapped 'Falling Skies,' I took a trip to the Caribbean to visit my grandma, which is great. I was out there for two weeks in Grenada. Then after that, I went to Poland for two and a half weeks to go watch some of the European soccer championships. — Brandon Jay McLaren

My mood, as I identify with each of my heroes, resembles what I used to feel when I played alone as a child. Like all children, I liked to play make-believe, to put myself in someone else's place and imagine dream worlds in which I was a soldier, a famous soccer player, or a great hero. — Orhan Pamuk

I can remember certain Manchester United defeats the way most people remember family bereavements or great political events. The four-nil drubbing by Barcelona, the failure to score against West Ham, the New Year's Day calamity at home to Spurs, the mauling by Middlesborough. — Tom Dunne

All human history moves towards one great goal — James Joyce

I played in Europe and it was a great experience, not just because of my team-mates and the coaches we had, but from the fans and the city itself - I played in Gothenburg and I played in Lyon and soccer was everywhere. — Hope Solo

For all the enlightened nations that profess a loyalty to liberty, democracy, economy and all the rest, there has long been a readiness to look for a chosen one; as Carlyle pointed out, even the French, those great anti-venerators, those relentless beheaders of Great Men, worshipped Voltaire. — Chris Anderson

I can't play soccer, and I'm not a great swimmer. I won't drown, but you won't see me doing laps in a pool. — Michelle Obama

I still remember what my father said "There are on the stadium 22 idiots, which are running after ball.". From where did he knew that??
He knew it from guarding the stadium, so my question is why we don't watch how a dog catch a ball?
But we watch 22 idiots running after the ball??
What are the differences??
That the dog can't kick the ball, but the humanity can?? - Wow, wow that's a great discovery for a dumb person! — Deyth Banger

That lad must have been born offside. — Alex Ferguson

I went to professional men's soccer games, the old North American soccer league at that time, and I used to be a ticket holder with my family and family friends. We would go every weekend and I thought it was great, but I just thought of it as recreation, as family fun. — Brandi Chastain

I think if you've managed Celtic or Rangers you can go on to be Prime Minister of Great Britain, it's that hard. — Gordon Strachan

I suppose young people think football is glamorous - soccer - it's big money and the stars of it, they look good and have a great big house and a huge Ferrari. — Bryan Ferry

We scored a goal and defended until the end with great spirit. We have a lot of young players and I hope we can keep on like this. — Lorik Cana

There is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning. — John Piper

I've seen the growth of this game in this country, the stadiums that were built, the great European players that have come and the great American players who've been created. Americans want to be number one at everything. And they are at baseball, football, basketball. Soccer is growing fast, and I want to be a part of that. — David Beckham

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 am prepared. The more pressure there is, the stronger I am. In Portugal, we say the bigger the ship, the stronger the storm. Fortunately for me, I have always been in big ships. FC Porto was a very big ship in Portugal, Chelsea was also a big ship in England and Inter was a great ship in Italy. Now I'm at Real Madrid, which is considered the biggest ship on the planet. — Jose Mourinho

If there is a defining aspect of UNC women's soccer, and its success, it is what we call the competitive cauldron. It is the pinnacle of our program. The great part about the cauldron is that it fosters a quality we can all possess. It isn't a talent we are born with. Competitive drive is not governed by innate ability, but by self-discipline and desire — Anson Dorrance