Quotes & Sayings About Soccer

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

It was with a homosexual, I was barely 14 years old. But let's be fair, I wasn't the only one who did it. He was a man in Bauru that all our team visited. — Pele

I love soccer; I want to be on the field. — Brandi Chastain

Today, with the way things are in all circles, in soccer, in society, in politics, where it seems anything goes, a gesture of honesty goes down well. — Ivan Fernandez Anaya

Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence. — Bobby Charlton

Substitution is a true test of strength. The real performance of a player is seen not only during playing time but also and more especially when the player is substituted. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

On this 101st FA Cup Final day, there are just two teams left — David Coleman

I'm a little skeptical of foreign coaches in our league and in U.S. Soccer just because of how different our league is and our players are than other players around the world. — Landon Donovan

Soccer forces life to move on. There's always a new match. A new season. There's always a dream that everything can get better. It's a game of wonders. — Fredrik Backman

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

When I was in college, I learned to really take care of my body and figured out what works best for me and what doesn't work for me when it comes to my nutrition. That helped so much on the field because soccer is such a fitness-oriented game. — Abby Wambach

I love soccer. That's all I ever watch. I'll watch it all day if I can. But I'm too bloody old to play now. — Geezer Butler

The only subject fewer authentic Americans cared about than the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo was World Cup Soccer. America is an epic global battle with ruthless savages who seek our destruction, and liberals are feeling sorry for the terrorists. — Ann Coulter

At nineteen I was pretty sure I was going to be a professional soccer player. At that time I played for one of the Norwegian premier leagues. But I tore ligaments in both knees, so I started studying business administration and economics and became a financial analyst, and I worked at a brokerage firm as a stockbroker. — Jo Nesbo

The rules of soccer are very simple, basically it is this: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn't move, kick it until it does. — Phil Abraham

We were massive underdogs at the beginning of the competition and I'll put my hands up say and I didn't think we were going to go all the way. But, as you can see, we are never beaten. The manager told us to keep our chins up, to try and score early in the second half and give some respect for the fans. The first goal gave us a bit of belief. The supporters have saved up for weeks and months to come here. I am so happy to lift the cup for the fans. — Steven Gerrard

I really wanted to go to architecture school but the demands of playing D-1 Collegiate soccer just take over so I tried to empathize architecture as much as I could. — Steve Purdy

My father was a basketball player, so I loved basketball because he did. It was a direct transference. But, more than that, basketball, in the United States at least, plays the same function that soccer does everyone else in the world. It's the sport of poverty. It's the sport born of poverty. It's the cheapest sport. — Sherman Alexie

Some people think football [soccer] is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that. — Bill Shankly

I hate sports. My reaction to the ball is this [kicks soccer ball] Don't kick it back to me. I don't wanna see it again. — Steven Page

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

Whatever happens, there are always things you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have scored a third. That's perfectionism. That's what makes you progress in life. — Eric Cantona

The goal is soccer's orgasm. And like orgasms, goals have become an ever less frequent occurrence in modern life. — Eduardo Galeano

My background playing soccer gave me a natural advantage over many of the American-born players. — Hakeem Olajuwon

Fortunately for me, it's my most favorite drill, and that is finishing. However, from a young age, soccer players in this country are not taught how to properly finish, and I think you see that through the professional ranks, that we don't have that killer instinct of the forwards from other countries. — Landon Donovan

Soccer just couldn't satisfy my thirst for watching violence up close. — Pat McAfee

Teddy has lost that yard of pace he never had. — Tony Cascarino

I didn't win prom king. By that point, I'd quit sports except for soccer, so I was really just a theater guy. I totally lost to the captain of the football team. — Patrick Wilson

Well Ibrox is filling up slowly, but rapidly — James Sanderson

In reality, the vagina is not a game of soccer to be kicked around like a ball. Its goal is to love and not keep score of how many times it's beaten the competition. Having a vagina is a beautiful thing and shouldn't be locked up or controlled by those who do not have one. — Sadiqua Hamdan

Soccer isn't the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community's fabric, a repository of traditions. — Franklin Foer

Funny, how the American team appealed to so many people because it was unsullied by money, and selfishness and corporate fingerprints, and yet when Chastain removed her shirt the old cynicism returned immediately. Surely, many thought and wrote, she had a deal with Nike to flash her bra and to make her body a living, breathing mannequin. — Jere Longman

Laddie, that man scored 200 goals in 270 matches - an incredible record - and he has won cup after cup as a manager. When he talks, pin back your ears. — Bill Shankly

Suddenly I remembered something Daddy told me once when I was angry at my mother. "You know how Mom arranges orange slices on a plate for your soccer team and has activities planned for your birthday parties two months in advance?" he'd asked me. "That's the way she shows her love, Gracie." Why was I thinking about that now? I could hear his voice so clearly, like he was talking to me from the backseat of the car. That's the way she shows her love, Gracie. — Diane Chamberlain

Soccer is what I grew up doing - it's my passion, and I'm way more comfortable on the field in my soccer cleats. — Alex Morgan

Youth soccer is big business. If I don't win, it doesn't matter if I'm developing players, my business is going to hell. — Tony DiCicco

We want kids to think that they can think about science. They don't need to just play soccer. — Miguel Nicolelis

I think women's soccer is so important. Soccer is the biggest sport for little girls. It's so important for us to give these girls a dream and something they can aspire to be. — Lauren Holiday

People say I'm hard, I'm Mr Angry. I'm this, I'm that. I just want to win matches. There's no point going out there and being Mr Nice Guy. We get 55,000 at Old Trafford and I don't think they want fellas going out there and thinking: Ah, if we lose, so what? — Roy Keane

I loathed the game, and since I could see no pleasure or usefulness in it, it was very difficult for me to show courage at it. Football, it seemed to me, is not really played for the pleasure of kicking a ball about, but is a species of fighting. — George Orwell

I need a life outside of soccer. So I very much welcome, you know, new love interests and dating and friends and family. — Hope Solo

I am a big soccer fan, and a very big Liverpool fan. — Clive Owen

Drogba is a fighter. He is the kind of player I would say 'With you I could go to every war.' — Jose Mourinho

I grew up on North American sports teams as well as English soccer clubs. — Ian Astbury

I wanted to be a soccer player. And then I wanted to be a rabbi. — Jake Epstein

I thought, if we could just come together as a community, even if that just meant playing soccer together, that could be the beginning of something good. Coming together as a community, as a people, creates more power than exists when individuals are fighting each other for scraps. Soccer has always brought people together. Soccer was where I would begin. — Kennedy Odede

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

We had a strict routine that nothing could change: we'd get up at six, and it would be my job or Meinhard's to get milk from the farm door. When w were a little older and starting to play sports, exercises were added to the chores, and we had to earn our breakfast by doing sit-ups. In the afternoon, we'd finish our homework and chores, and my father would make us practice soccer no matter how bad the weather was. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

For me soccer provides so many emotions, a different feeling every day. I've had the good fortune to take part in major competitions like the Olympics, and winning the World Cup was also unforgettable. We lost in the Olympics and won in the World Cup, and I'll never forget either feeling. — Ronaldinho

Kids see cooking as a creative outlet now, like soccer and ballet. It gives me hope that things like fast food, childhood obesity and the horrible state of school lunches can be addressed by kids and their parents. — Graham Elliot

Rugby is a different game. There is an interruption every two minutes also in American football. Our soccer is a moving game: play, play, play, move, move - you don't interrupt. — Franz Beckenbauer

When I was in third grade
the age of many of the boys here
my parents had debated whether or not to buy me a pair of [special soccer shoes] ... Here in Bolivia most of the kids played in bare feet, and they had as much fun as we ever had. Alone, human beings can feel hunger. Alone, we can feel cold. Alone, we can feel pain. To feel poor, however, is something that we do only in comparison to others. I took off my shoes. — Eric Greitens

How on earth Traore gets into this team is beyond me. And he's a Champions League winner? Gimme a break. They've Riise sitting on the bench who's a different class to this fella. — Johnny Giles

It is unfortunate that we have to live in a fortress, but we are forced to do so given the high crime rate in the country. I travel with two bodyguards all the time and there is substantial cost involved — Vivian Reddy

I tried all kinds of sports when I was a kid, like soccer and tennis and golf, and, in fact, started skating to be able to play hockey. — Patrick Chan

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

If you love Senegal so much, why don't you play for them? — Roy Keane

And I didn't think you believed in god or a heaven.'
'Having been here thirty-four days,' I tell him, 'I've changed my mind, Sydney.'
'Why's that then?' he smiles.
'Well, if there's a hell like this place, then there has to be heaven somewhere. — David Peace

The last player to score a hatrick in a cup final was Stan Mortenson. He even had a final named after him, the Matthews final — Lawrie McMenemy

Look, there's no rule in soccer against biting your opponent. There's not even a rule against eating your opponent. The only rule in soccer is that you can't use your hands. — Luis Suarez

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

If you eat caviar every day it's difficult to return to sausages. — Arsene Wenger

There were seven people on a Quidditch team: three Chasers, whose job it was to score goals by putting the Quaffle (a red, soccer-sized ball) through one of the fifty-foot-high hoops at each end of the field; two Beaters, who were equipped with heavy bats to repel the Bludgers (two heavy black balls that zoomed around trying to attack the players); a Keeper, who defended the goalposts, and the Seeker, who had the hardest job of all, that of catching the Golden Snitch, a tiny, winged, walnut-sized ball, whose capture ended the game and earned the Seeker's team an extra one hundred and fifty points. — J.K. Rowling

In the past, I had my idols but today I enjoy learning from all the soccer I watch. — Andres Iniesta

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

The only way we will be going to Europe is if the club splash out and take us all to EuroDisney. — Dean Holdsworth

A true believer may worship Jehovah, Allah, or Brahma, the supernatural beings who allegedly created all life; a true believer may slavishly adhere to a dogma designed theoretically to improve life; yet for life itself - its pleasures, wonders, and delights - he or she holds minimal regard. Music, chess, wine, card games, attractive clothing, dancing, meditation, kites, perfume, marijuana, flirting, soccer, cheeseburgers, any expression of beauty, and any recognition of genius or individual excellence: each of those things has been severely condemned and even outlawed by one cadre of true believers or another in modern times. — Tom Robbins

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

My idol was Johann Cruyff (a Dutch soccer player) and I wanted to be like him. But when I realized that I would never be, I decided to do something else. I met the kitchen by chance and quickly became completely enamoured by it. — Ferran Adria

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

Like many a Yank before me, I have tried to explain to European friends that Americans actually know soccer quite well, that many of us played it in school and college, but that, well, we just don't find it quite as exciting as, say, what we call football. — Serge Schmemann

Play is under attack in our nation's schools - and shrinking recess periods are only part of the problem. Homework is increasing. Cities are building new schools without playgrounds. Safety concerns are prompting bans of tag, soccer, and even running on the schoolyard. — Darell Hammond

The three things that kept me sane as a child were bikes, books, and soccer — Mal Peet

Television is making sports universal; for the same reason, big-time soccer is growing more popular in the United States. — George Vecsey

Gymnastics is not at all as popular as, for example, soccer. Gymnastics as a sport isn't promoted very well. — Henrietta Onodi

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

Soccer must play a socio-cultural role. We reach 1.6 billion people, thanks to the positive emotions that soccer triggers, FIFA is more influential than any country on Earth and any religion. We move masses. We want to use that to create more peace, justice and health in the world. — Pope Francis

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

The myth stems from the belief that writing is some mystical process. That it's magical. That it abides by its own set of rules different from all other forms of work, art, or play.But that's bullshit. Plumbers don't get plumber's block. Teachers don't get teacher's block. Soccer players don't get soccer block. What makes writing different? Nothing. The only difference is that writers feel they have a free pass to give up when writing is hard. — Patrick Rothfuss

One thing will not change - we will be going out to win. — David Beckham

I think we have our sports within our own culture that are huge with baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Those are the sports in America that we grow up with and soccer isn't really there yet. — Claudio Reyna

Her teeth were like a soccer crowd, crammed in. — Markus Zusak

On the line beside Describe your family, I wrote, "Bad."

What is your favorite subject in school? "None."

List three of your favorite activities. "Soccer, ballet, and fighting."

Two of those favorite activities were lies but one of them was the truth.

I am fond of fighting. — Barbara O'Connor

Two Dutch researchers did a study in which they had groups of students answer forty-two fairly demanding questions from the board game Trivial Pursuit. Half were asked to take five minutes beforehand to think about what it would mean to be a professor and write down everything that came to mind. Those students got 55.6 percent of the questions right. The other half of the students were asked to first sit and think about soccer hooligans. They ended up getting 42.6 percent of the Trivial Pursuit questions right. The "professor" group didn't know more than the "soccer hooligan" group. They weren't smarter or more focused or more serious. They were simply in a "smart" frame of mind, and, clearly, associating themselves with the idea of something smart, like a professor, made it a lot easier - in that stressful instant after a trivia question was asked - to blurt out the right answer. — Malcolm Gladwell

All I can say is, hey, if you have fun doing what you do, if you have fun playing soccer, the creativity is just going to come as time goes on. — Freddy Adu

I'd rather play tennis than go to the dentist.
I'd rather play soccer than go to the doctor.
I'd rather play Hurk than go to work.
Hurk? Hurk? What's Hurk?
I don't know, but it must be better than work. — Shel Silverstein

Forest have now lost six matches without winning. — David Coleman

The best place to play' means you love the guys you're playing with. It means you develop deep relationships that go well beyond soccer. It means you have awesome team chemistry where what the team needs is more important than what you need - and you fully buy-in to that. It means you fight for game time but you don't hold that against your teammate - that you're not mad when you're subbed out, but instead, you're excited for the guy who came in for you. And it means we have each other's back. — Michael A. Zigarelli

Do you know who I am? Why, have you forgotten? — Rio Ferdinand

Facebook revealed that Ebola was the most popular Facebook topic in the U.S. this year, with the World Cup coming in sixth. So welcome to America, where even Ebola is more popular than soccer. — Jimmy Fallon

Officials from the soccer organization FIFA, which decides which cities get to host the World Cup, are accused of accepting bribes when making their decision. Of course the toughest part for the soccer officials was taking bribes without using their hands. — Jimmy Fallon

[F]or the most part football these days is the opium of the people, not to speak of their crack cocaine. Its icon is the impeccably Tory, slavishly conformist Beckham. The Reds are no longer the Bolsheviks. Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished. And any political outfit that tried it on would have about as much chance of power as the chief executive of BP has in taking over from Oprah Winfrey. — Terry Eagleton

Soccer is one of the most unifying activities amongst us. — Nelson Mandela

Professionally, it would be a logical choice, but my personal view is that he is the most insincere man I know in football — Tony Cascarino

Four wins in four matches. It could not be better ... the world is fantastic. — Jose Mourinho

Dream big, because dreams do happen. — Alex Morgan

I like physical exercise. I actually like sports in general. I really like snowboarding and playing soccer, too. — Valentino Rossi

If I were going to war I would want to be alongside an Englishman not a Frenchman. The Frenchman would think too much. — Arsene Wenger

The dice are stacked against them — Theo Foley

Mai grins at Mycroft. 'You know that's slightly ridiculous, don't you?'
He smiled. 'Why?'
'Because. . . because you're teenagers.' Mai's expression says it should be obvious. 'Mycroft, this isn't like figuring out who spray-painted some guy's car. This is murder.'
'The principles are the same' he insists.
'But you're both minors. And you have no access to police information, no experience, no forensics lab, no authority. . . '
'Mai, are you trying to bring me down or something?'
Gus, who usually only gets emotive about things like soccer, suddenly leans forward. 'I think you should do it.' He glances at me and Mycroft in turn. 'This homeless guy, it's not like his death is going to be a major priority, is it? The police won't bend over backwards to bring his killer to justice or anything. He was a derelict with no family. So you two are the only ones who even care. — Ellie Marney