Quotes & Sayings About Soccer Players

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

The most important thing for a forward is speed of thought. Top players read the game. — Samuel Eto'o

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

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

I come from a family where soccer has always been very present. My uncles, my father and my brother were all players. — Ronaldinho

At least for soccer players, it comes down to a blend of two types of fitness - your base endurance, which comes from longer distance running, and your speed, which comes from sprint-based workouts. — Heather O'Reilly

I gave up on the delusion that these players enjoy soccer as much as I do, that they play for the love of the game. — Rabih Alameddine

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

Chelsea's players, coaches and agents are now football's wealthiest millionaires. Surely the billions taken from the Russian people by an oligarch in questionable privatisations couldn't be better spent? — Simon Kuper

But before Derby go, would they mind telling the rest of the Premier League - the league which it has debased with its pathetically-inadequate presence for the past 12 months - where the money has gone? You know, the £30m or so in prize money that every team, even the one at the bottom of the table from August to May, automatically receives by being in the Premier League ... So what happened to that money? Or put another way, why was such a meaningless fraction of it spent on recruiting new players? It's one thing not to compete; it's quite another not to even attempt to do so. — Pete Gill

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

My heroes were always soccer players. — Ronaldinho

I have only been here since 1996 but between 1966 and 1996 England had thirty years without foreign players and didn't win any more competitions in that time. — Arsene Wenger

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

At a youth soccer game you'll probably hear parents and coaches on the sidelines yelling, 'Pass the ball! Pass the ball!' ... When we continually tell our young players to pass the ball, we're not allowing them to develop their full potential, especially those who have the ability to take their opponents on and beat them one-on-one. As a result, we run the risk of diminishing a player's artistry and potential. — Tony DiCicco

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

However good an English team is, they will always have an additional advantage. It is that European players know that their English opponents will come at them in the belief they will win, and they can always be guaranteed never to stop fighting. They have a natural aggression that they are born with. If it ever goes, English football will lose its most valuable dimension. — Johan Cruijff

What I like about it is the creativity. When I watch good soccer players - the way they have to make a play out of nothing. — George Vecsey

Such a positive move by Uruguay - bringing 2 players off and putting 2 players on. — John Helm

Ibiza is a popular vacation place for a lot of the players in Spain. If you go in the summer, there are some of the world's most famous movie and music stars, so nobody cares about soccer players. — Xavi

I am so very proud of you - your openness, your ambition, your aggression, your intelligence. My job, in the little time we have left together, is to match that intelligence with wisdom. Part of that wisdom is understanding what you were given - a city where gay bars are unremarkable, a soccer team on which half the players speak some other language. What I am saying is that it does not all belong to you, that the beauty in you is not strictly yours and is largely the result of enjoying an abnormal amount of security in your black body. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The black players at this club lend the side a lot of skill and flair, but you also need white players to balance things up and give the team some brains and common sense. — Ron Noades

The first task is to get to know the players really well-watching them as individuals in training and in match play-to see what is good in their natural game. Then, and only then, can we begin to outline the general tactics. — Helenio Herrera

Sure we have skilled players, but the biggest thing might just be that we are so well conditioned and how we can play for 90 minutes at a high tempo which is needed in soccer at an international level. — Claudio Reyna

I don't like to see players tossed off needlessly. — Andy Gray

If it is the case that you need just a first 11 and three or four more players, then why did Christopher Columbus sail to India to discover America? — Claudio Ranieri

International friendly games are not worth the lives of the silk worms who perish to make the pennants. They do not even have the philanthropic excuse that softens the otherwise unendurable tedium of testimonial matches. Quite simply, they are rotten games staged to pick the public's pocket, tiresome red tape left over from an era when nations and players were still insular and therefore curious about each other's potential. — Danny Baker

Coaching soccer, like disciplines including journalism, you'll always learn if you're open to it, you'll learn from your players. If that's being smart, fair enough. — Tony DiCicco

You know how kids dream of being soccer players or actors? Well, my dream was to be a sushi chef. — Nobu Matsuhisa

Even all the top players going to Europe to play helps soccer in America, as do all the MLS players like Beckham and all that, they're trying to promote it. At the end of the day it's about getting the younger generation interested at an early age so most of them will move on and play. — Ian Rush

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

If you get operated, something can go wrong and you can just say bye-bye to tennis. That's what happened to a lot of soccer players in Europe. They get operated, some things, it's not the mistake of the doctor. It's just some surgeries, they just don't go the right way ... My injury will never go away. It's already become so chronic there's no chance to fix it so I can play without pain. — Marat Safin

I want to be one of the best players around in two or three years time, to be a decisive footballer. — Cristiano Ronaldo

You know I don't think there will ever be a time when the English player is not respected, and feared, across the world of football. The English footballer is very brave and strong and committed and there is always enough high-class players in his team to cause concern in any opponent. It is a national characteristic. — Johan Cruijff

It will be the proudest moment of my life leading Liverpool out. I've dreamed of this day since I was a kid, kicking a ball against the wall in the street where I lived. What could be better than leading Liverpool out for the Champions League final? Only lifting the trophy. We need everyone, all 11 players who start and the subs, to be ready to give everything. We need that mentality, when everyone has to put everything on the line for Liverpool. That is what it will take to win. We have to make sure we don't have any regrets at the final whistle. — Steven Gerrard

Soccer players generally burn through all of their carbohydrate stores by halftime, so how are you going to replace those? That's what we do at halftime. — Abby Wambach

As the Protestants celebrate a goal, they're egged on by the team captain, a long-haired Italian called Lorenzo Amoruso, who has the look of a 1980s male model. Flailing his arms, he urges them to sing their anti-Catholic songs louder. The irony is obvious: Amoruso is a Catholic. For that matter, so are most of the Rangers players. Since the late nineties, Rangers routinely field nearly as many Catholics as Celtic. Their players come from Georgia, Argentina, Germany, Sweden, Portugal and Holland, because money can buy no better ones. Championships mean more than religious purity. — Franklin Foer

If you had to name one particular person to blame it would have to be one of the players — Theo Foley

Players taught to watch the man with the ball leaves them totally unprepared for the next move, which is always dictated by a player without the ball. — Tommy Docherty

I will be the one lifting that trophy, not Paolo Maldini. Imagine me hoisting the trophy. It is an image I have in my mind and I want to make it a reality. We have world-class players and, believe me, they are in the mood to do it. The atmosphere around the club at the moment is just top-class. — Steven Gerrard

The greatest injustice I had ever seen humans perpetrate against themselves was unwholesome as I was yet to come to terms with the pitiable situation where well-meaning people argued about the lives of soccer players who did not even know that they, the debaters, existed. — S.A. David

The statistics John Wesson has compiled in The Science of Soccer show that Premiership football players are vastly more likely to have been born in the first half of the school year. These were the biggest boys in the class and were thus selected for the school team. How fair is that? — Daniel Finkelstein

Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, wrote in the New York Times in February 2009, The virus that infected professional baseball in the 1990s, the use of statistics to find new and better ways to value players and strategies, has found its way into every major sport. Not just basketball and football, but also soccer and cricket and rugby and, for all I know, snooker and darts - — Anonymous

If Ashley Cole is ready we have 15 players for the final. I'll have to choose between Hilario, who's not bad playing forward or I'll bring in one of the kids. — Jose Mourinho

Playing against 10 is harder than playing against 11 players. You know why? The team with 11 will think "ok, we can take it easy now", while the team with 10 will think "We really have to work hard now." — Johan Cruijff

I thought about soccer in history, the inspiration for wars, truces, rampaging mobs. The game was a global passion, spherical ball, grass or turf, entire nations in spasms of elation or lament. But what kind of sport is it that disallows the use of players' hands, except for the goalkeeper? Hands are essential human tools, the things that grasp and hold, that make, take, carry, create. If soccer were an American invention, wouldn't some European intellectual maintain that our historically puritanical nature has compelled us to invent a game structured on anti-masturbatory principles? — Don DeLillo

AFC Leopards were as thrilling a side as ever took the pitch and they dominated East African football in the eighties. That Kenyan players were an excitable bunch was attested to in one memorable Leopards match, with the opposing goalkeeper being handcuffed and dragged away to jail by police. — David Bennun

Males who do extreme amounts of exercise, such as professional soccer players and runners who cover more than 40 or 50 miles a week, have less LHRH, LH, and testosterone in their circulation, smaller testes, less functional sperm. They also have higher levels of glucocorticoids in their bloodstreams, even in the absence of stress. (A similar decline in reproductive function is found in men who are addicted to opiate drugs.) — Robert M. Sapolsky

I'm a big soccer fan, so any soccer player that I meet, I always get star struck. I've met a lot of big stars - Justin Timberlake, Michael Buble - and I don't ever get starstruck, but when I met famous ex-football players, I just got completely starstruck. — Olly Murs

Good players win you games, good formations stop you losing them. — Gordon Strachan

Weary soccer players just cannot run anymore and must resort to shootouts after 120 minutes when a result is mandatory, but men on skates can go indefinitely, no matter how badly it disrupts the television network's schedule. — George Vecsey

I just hope he doesn't frighten the players 'cos they're frigtened enough right now. — Roy Keane

Outside has everything. Whenever I think of a thing now like skis or fireworks or islands or elevators or yo-yos, I have to remember they're real, they're actually happening in Outside all together. It makes my head tired. And people too, firefighters teachers burglars babies saints soccer players and all sorts, they're all really in Outside. I'm not there, though, me and Ma, we're the only ones not there. Are we still real? — Emma Donoghue

Whoever believes physical size and tests of speed or strength have anything to do with a soccer player's prowess is sorely mistaken. Just as mistaken as those who believe that IQ tests have anything to do with talent or that there is a relationship between penis size and sexual pleasure. Good soccer players need not to be titans sculpted by Michelangelo. In soccer, ability is much more important than shape, and in many cases skill is the art of turning limitations into virtues. — Eduardo Galeano

I asked the players: 'Do you want to enjoy the game? Or do you want to enjoy after the game?' The players told me they wanted to enjoy after the game so I said: 'OK, then we will enjoy after the game'. — Jose Mourinho

It is one of my biggest regrets that Niall Quinn was not here during my time ... I felt he was an intelligent player. It would have been a good combination with Thierry Henry. What I like with Quinn is if you look at the player who played next to him, he always scored 40 goals because he had a hand for his head and he just put the ball where you were. He was a team player. A top-class player makes other players look good and he had that player. — Arsene Wenger

England are very light up front. Eriksson's decision not to include Jermaine Defoe can be declared an error of judgment, regardless of Rooney's situation. The Swede should have forgone one of his nine midfield players; much will have to go wrong for Jermaine Jenas to get a game. — Matt Dickinson

Some [soccer] players suffer four or five fatal injuries per game. That's how tough they are. — Dave Barry

I just wanted to give my players some technical advice. I told them the game had started. — Ron Atkinson

At the end of the day, the Arsenal fans demand that we put eleven players on the pitch — Don Howe

Systems are made by players rather than players making systems — Theo Foley

Sport can be used for messaging, for example, making the connections between shin guards or a helmet that protects you, and protection in terms of HIV and AIDS. There has also been a very active program in Africa called 'Kick Polio out of Africa,' where soccer players have spoken out in terms of polio. There is also going to be a swim for malaria. — Carol Bellamy

After the '96 Olympics, we all started believing that this is bigger than we thought, and we were willing to do the work. We knew that it was up to us, the players, to make soccer successful. — Brandi Chastain

saying Daphne was a worrywart was like saying soccer players' legs were a thing of jaw-dropping, panty-melting goodness. It was just a fact of life. — Avery Flynn

I don't understand referees. It appears like some players can't even be touched, but in my case, everyone can hit me as hard as they can. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Like so many of the players, I started at La Masia at the age of 11. I can't ever imagine not playing for Barcelona, let alone not playing soccer for a career. I don't ever want to play anywhere else. — Xavi

There's a strange uniformity in the vocabulary European soccer fans use to hate black people. The same primate insults get hurled. Although they've gotten better over time, the English and Italians developed the tradition of making ape noises when black players touched the ball. The Poles toss bananas on the field. This consistency owes nothing to television, which rarely shows these finer points of fan behavior. Nor are these insults considered polite to discuss in public. This trope has simply become a continent-wide folk tradition, transmitted via the stadium, from fan to fan, from father to son. — Franklin Foer

By analogy, if we were to develop a soccer team, then we would not invite basketball and volleyball players to the try outs. We would invite soccer players to apply. — Jean-Marie Le Pen

I actually don't feel the years passing, although the younger players make sure to remind me of my age. If there's a clip of Bobby Charlton playing or a game's in black and white they'll ask: Were you playing in that Giggsy? — Ryan Giggs

Over analyse, paralyse, you mustn't over analyse ... Do you wake up at four in the morning and wonder who should be playing left-back? Four? I would love to sleep that long. If you want a really long career you have to find a way of switching off. I do it when I'm out walking my dog, Alex Ferguson got into horses, others get into wine. Some players like going shopping, which is not my scene. A lot of them turn to golf. I tried it, didn't like it. I have to walk. If I couldn't I'd be in a padded cell by now. — Roy Keane

As professional soccer players, we take our bodies to the extreme. We're the people at the gym that look like we're breaking the machines. Pushing our bodies to the limits is what makes us so strong and capable and Olympians. It's not an easy thing to consistently do over and over again to your body. — Abby Wambach

Getting a chance to practice six months against my own teammates, who I consider the best soccer players in the world, there's no way I couldn't improve. — Lorrie Fair

Cristiano Ronaldo's was the most exciting debut I've ever seen. There have been a few players described as 'The New George Best' over the years, but this is the first time it's been a compliment to me. — George Best

Soccer's not a game that you can restrict players, especially creative players and players who have proven themselves at that level. — Tiffeny Milbrett

Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you. — Chad Harbach

What she revealed was not sexy lingerie, but a supportive piece of athletic equipment. After the consolation match that preceded the championship game, both Brazilian and Norwegian players removed their jerseys and exchanged them on the floor of the Rose Bowl. Chastain had previously removed her jersey after regulation to air it out. While training in Florida, the players frequently doffed their shirts after practice in the smothering heat, and they sometimes gave interviews in their sports bras, which were items of utility, not titillation. Chastain 'has brought instant attention to a piece of clothing that is humble and practical, not a traditional bra of shine and lace and cleavage, but a sturdy compression garment,' wrote Ann Gerhart of the Washington Post. 'The sports bra is the cloth symbol of Title IX's success. — Jere Longman

I feel that right from the start the players were prepared to experience catastrophic results with comments like: 'It's going to be tough and we are going to need time'. — Lilian Thuram

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

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

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

When Ronaldo gave that little wink everyone interpreted it that he had got his team-mate sent off. You felt then that he would become a much criticised figure. But that's not really what happened. So for him to overcome all of that and emerge as one of the players of the season is quite a remarkable achievement. He is a phenomenal talent. He has tremendous pace, he goes past players and he has added the ability to shoot. He can also pick out team-mates. There is not a lot he cannot do now. I believe his game has improved immeasurably over the past couple of seasons. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Edgar was named as one of the players involved, but he was in my room, discussing religious subjects with me. — George Boateng

Get the best player because whether it's soccer or whether it's anything else the team with the best players wins. So focus your energy on getting the best and getting rid of the weakest. — Jack Welch

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

The difference between players is not always the quality but their mentality. — Rafael Benitez

If you don't have that science and technology and brains as an input, as you don't have in large parts of Latin America, if you don't focus your education on that, if you don't find your 10,000 best scientists, but you do find your 10,000 best soccer players, the consequences are, you become a World Cup Champion in Soccer, like Brazil, but you don't become Korea, which earned 1/5 of what a Mexican did in 1975 and today earns five times more. — Juan Enriquez

At a football club, there's a holy trinity - the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are only there to sign the checks. — Bill Shankly

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

We have to move the meter in sports in Africa, especially basketball. With the growth of the NBA globally, we have to figure out more ways to develop facilities, coaching, leagues, and youth development in Africa. The talent is incredible. Especially physically. How do we get the youth to start playing at an early age just like in soccer? The future is bright. We now have an NBA office in Africa, we have legends and Hall of Famers, we have African assistant coaches, front office members, and some prominent African players over the last 10 years. So we must plan well for the next 10. — Masai Ujiri

I like to watch soccer, no matter what teams or players are in the field. — Andres Iniesta

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

People just assume, over the years, that soccer players are not too intelligent. As with most assumptions, they're wrong. — David Beckham

Now, modern economies have a very effective mechanism for deciding if salaries are really too high: it's called the free market. That's how most people's salaries are set, after all, including those of major-league baseball players and European soccer players. — James Surowiecki

Considerable research on successful soccer players and their developmental history, affirms that a good percentage of them have spent time in isolation, working on soccer skills. — Pele

This is an unusual Scotland side because they have good players. — Javier Clemente

When people say 'American soccer,' they think of the U.S. national team. But American soccer also includes Major League Soccer, and until we have a league that produces players at the rate other leagues around the world do, I don't believe we'll ever get to where we want to be. — Landon Donovan

This is a game between players from 12 national sides, a game that if you have a friend in China, in Brazil, in Qatar ... in half the world he wants to watch. I was thinking of this game when I signed for Chelsea. — Luiz Felipe Scolari

I played on this soccer team, called Hollywood United, and there were a lot of old ex-international pro-players. We played this benefit match at the Rose Bowl, and the crowd streamed in. It's so nerve-wracking to go out into a stadium, feeling a billion eyes upon you when you mess up your touches. That's an overwhelming environment. — Donal Logue

Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men - such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion? — Sepp Blatter