Team National Quotes & Sayings

I've known since I went to the national team when I was very young that I was a different bird. — Tiffeny Milbrett

If I am elected leader, my shadow opposition team will actively incorporate the policy contributions of all our members by instituting policy action committees as recommend by the 2010 National Review. — Bill Shorten

The president requested me to restore order in the national team. I have been designated to be part of the official delegation to Egypt to help boost the morale of our players. — Roger Milla

As difficult as it is to build a team, it is not complicated. In fact, keeping it simple is critical, whether you run the executive staff at a multi-national company, a small department within a larger organization, or even if you are merely a member of a team that needs improvement. — Patrick Lencioni

But that in and of itself this past year was not a factor in what I did for the national team every time I stepped out there, or in training, or when I stepped out there in the WUSA. — Tiffeny Milbrett

If my soccer career were over, I would still come here because of the people. And despite the fact I've had to skip some school for National Team purposes, I am looking forward to holding that Carolina degree as soon as I can get my hands on it. — Lorrie Fair

Anytime you have any opportunity to be with the national team it's an honor and a challenge, and it is something I am looking forward to. — Heather Mitts

Our goal as a team is to keep playing as a group for as long as we can because you will never have that team again. It is like a dying limb, you have to prune it off and let another one grow in its place. That is the way you have to do it, but it still hurts losing these guys and that team because they and you have put so much effort into building a team. Even if you win that last game (and a national championship), it hurts badly because the players know they will never have that same special group of guys together on the same team again. Somebody always goes and somebody new always comes in. — Don Meyer

As far as the World Cup is concerned, it is a process. We don't want to jump to the 50th floor straight away. We must start on the ground floor. — Sachin Tendulkar

The Cheney team had, for example, technological supremacy over the National Security Council staff. That is to say, they could read their e-mails. I remember one particular member of the N.S.C. staff wouldn't use e-mail because he knew they were reading it. He did a test case, kind of like the Midway battle, when we'd broken the Japanese code. He thought he' broken the code, so he sent a test e-mail out that he knew would rile Scooter [Libby], and within an hour Scooter was in his office. — Lawrence Wilkerson

The people of Cleveland hate soccer. But it's my favourite thing and I follow the U.S. men's national team around when they play whenever I can. — Drew Carey

"Embrace Of The Serpent" has been a big deal for Colombians outside the Amazon. It's been showing continuously there for more than three months. And the Oscar nomination, the film's producer says Colombians are comparing it to having the national team in the World Cup. — Tom Cole

You just gotta be who you are, and I think it's time to get rid of this whole National Basketball Association. Call it the TBA, the Thug Basketball Association, and stop calling them teams. Call 'em gangs. — Rush Limbaugh

My parents didn't know anything about collegiate scholarships, so they had accepted the national team training stipend, the monthly stipend that I received after making the national team, so I was ineligible for NCAA eligibility anyway. — Dominique Moceanu

I had a chance to play for the Cuban national team during the 2009 World Baseball Classic, but at the time I never thought about leaving Cuba. — Yoenis Cespedes

There in bed, happiness comes over me. Not like something that belongs to me, but like a wheel of fire rolling through the room and the world. For a moment I think I'll manage to let it pass and be able to lie there, aware of what I have, and not wish for anything more. The next moment I want to hang on. I want it to continue. He has to lie beside me tomorrow, too. This is my chance. My only, my last chance. I swing my legs onto the floor. Now I'm panic-stricken. This is what I've been working to avoid for thirty-seven years. I've systematically practiced the only thing in the world that is worth learning. How to renounce. I've stopped hoping for anything. When experienced humility becomes an Olympic discipline, I'll be on the national team. I've never had any patience for other people's unhappy love affairs. I hate their weakness. — Peter Hoeg

My goal is to get on the national team. People joke that we'll be able to go to Beijing in 2008, but it's just jokes right now. Hopefully I'll be able to make it a reality. — Lindsay Thompson

If you want to be a professional soccer player, if you want to make the national team, you have to do everything possible to work hard. You've got to put it number one. — Carli Lloyd

One training device is the ergometer. I never owned one, never trained on one, and practically never used one. The few national team tests I took on ergs were dismal failures, which worked wonders to further my dislike of these beastly creatures. Boring. Tedious. Noisy. Ergs have greatly cheapened rowing. Graceless. Greasy. Grim. The erg is to rowing what having sex by yourself is to having sex. Stop it! — Brad Alan Lewis

I wanted to play football or be a boxer, but my dad didn't want that because of all the impact. But in 1992 I was watching short track, and it was obscure, but they looked like superheroes in their tight outfits, and I thought it was amazing. I wanted to do that. I made the national team at 14. — Apolo Ohno

My biggest frustration with the Heisman is it's become the MVP of the national champion, or a team going to the National Championship game. That's what it's turned into. If you're not undefeated, you're out of the running. — Doug Flutie

In a nation committed to better living through chemistry - where Viagra-enabled men pursue silicone-contoured women - the national pastime has a problem of illicit chemical enhancement. Steroids threaten the health of the 5 percent to 7 percent of players proved, by a mild regime of scheduled tests, to be using them. Steroids also endanger emulative young people. Further, steroids subvert what baseball is selling - fair competition. And they strike at the pleasure of engagement with America's team sport with the longest history. — George Will

Kaneria has competed in more than 50 Test series [sic] for Pakistan during his career. — BBC

Some of their players are internationals; some play for their national team. — Steve McClaren

The right wing has had a radio apparatus for years and years, so they've had minor leagues - they've had local rightwing guys who've become national rightwing guys, and who build slowly, and that's how it goes. We haven't had that. It isn't like we have a farm team. — Al Franken

I think Barcelona and the Spanish national team have been good for soccer because there are a lot of teams that come up playing from the back: with the goalie, the defense, moving up a defender to midfield, playing attacking soccer. I think fans want to see that. They want to see beautiful soccer, a spectacle, and Barcelona does that. — Xavi

When I got to the senior national team, there was another Ronaldo, so they started calling me Ronaldinho because I was younger. — Ronaldinho

In 10 years' time I still want to be at Arsenal, winning trophies for my club and for the national team as well. I've been at Arsenal since I was nine or 10. It feels like I've always been there, the club's been great to me and I feel I owe them that to be there and to stay around. — Jack Wilshere

I was on the national Pentathlon team for a few years, but there was no funding for athletes in Canada. I was in a massive amount of personal debt at the age of 21, so I joined a little modelling and talent agency to get a some work, to do anything so that I didn't have to drop out of school. — Kris Holden-Ried

A player should be disparaged if he gives less than his all, if he doesn't give 100%, no matter what shirt he's wearing. Whether it's your national team, your club, or little league. Yes, there are friendly matches, recreational ones, and so on, but sport in its essence is about giving your best. — Rabih Alameddine

When you look at where team sports are going, the National Football League is turning into organized warfare. — Oren Lyons

It is always disappointing when a player is not prepared to stick it out and fight for his place in a national team. — Rudolph Straeuli

FC Barcelona is the national team of Catalonia — Carles Puyol

The Cincinnati Bengals look like the most complete team in the National Football League. I can't wait to see how they match up against New England. — Sterling Sharpe

I think every national team has the same possibilities to win the World Cup. — Javier Hernandez

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

A lot of people talk about the Fab Five, and they were wonderful, one of the best teams you'll ever see in college basketball. But the '89 team is the best one to ever play at Michigan in my opinion because they won the national championship. Winning a championship is winning a championship. — Trey Burke

The Houston Astros are the youngest team in the National League if you judge by age. — Don Drysdale

It's not that difficult to play well and win titles in a team like Barcelona, but it's in the national side where you see a player's true class. That was the case with figures like Pele, Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane. With Spain, Iniesta has shown that he is among the best players of all time and that's why I rate him higher than Messi or Ronaldo. Even though the latter two have incredible scoring records for their clubs, they still haven't won anything with Argentina or Portugal respectively. — Boris Becker

Yardy doing a good job out there - 1-14 off his five overs so far - but Bangla are letting this drift. The bowling is there to attack, but they're as passive as sleeping sloths at the mo. — Tom Fordyce

Even in the grimmest of enterprises there are tension breakers. At one point, the tabloid National Enquirer ran a story headlined "Bush and Saddam Are Cousins" and offered genealogical "proof" that not only was George Bush related to the queen of England, but "Hussein and President Bush share a common ancestry dating back at least to the crusades." This news prompted the President to circulate a memo to the national security team that said, "No decisions I make will be affected by my relationship with Saddam Hussein. The Queen and I would have it no other way. — Colin Powell

My life has changed in many ways, both on an economic and personal level. All major league players are accorded the respect they deserve. In Cuba, it was not that way. National team players were not respected. The treatment was not adequate. — Yoenis Cespedes

I wanted a T-shirt that says 'USA National Team'. It turned out to be a very smart decision. — Mark Warkentin

If the national coach lets decisions be made from outside, he's lost the team. — Jurgen Klinsmann

Bashir's comments were well-planned, typed into a teleprompter, and approved by an entire production team before being broadcast to his millions of few viewers. But the women of MSNBC, including feminist heroine Rachel Maddow, never uttered a word of criticism. Neither did the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority Foundation, or a host of other organizations claiming to fight for the rights of women everywhere. — Katie Pavlich

I have no problem with two teams claiming to be national champions at the end of the year. But that's our society. We're dying to know who the champion is. Heaven forbid we have two. That would be socialist, right? — Kirk Ferentz

She built a close-knit team of talented people who bonded with one another and felt passion for the mission. Soon her group became one of the parent bank's most desirable places to work. She developed strong relationships with senior executives who helped her deal with tensions in the middle, and she communicated well and often about why her unit needed to be different. Her creativity, vision, teamwork, and persistence helped this group succeed and become a national role model, while other banks' efforts faltered. — Harvard Business School Press

If there's a national-team player, he has to do extra work. He has to do extra weeks, and he can't go on vacation even if he says: 'Well, but I'm supposed now to have six weeks off.' If he comes and says that, then I give him a hug and say: 'Have fun the six weeks, but don't come back here.' — Jurgen Klinsmann

Rob Green needed to get the long barrier out, didn't he? — James Anderson

The national team comes before everything. — Lorrie Fair

I've signed a contract with the Dutch national team until 2006. So I can win the World Cup not once but twice. — Louis Van Gaal

Athletes at all ages are bigger and stronger than ever before. And they are being encouraged - sometimes even incentivized, as we recently learned was the case on at least one National Football League team - to play to injure. — Naveen Jain

Since the national team doesn't have a stadium yet, they'll come to play here, at Sofia airport. — Ivan Slavkov

But I have to say I'm incredibly proud of the Panther Racing National Guard Team, and in my IndyCar career there's not many races where I've honestly left the track feeling that we've executed everything perfectly. And I have to say, I thought they did an absolute phenomenal job. The pit stops were just first class. — Dan Wheldon

I had role models in my community, guys that were older than me and played at university or on the national team. Eli Pasquale was always around UVic when I was a young player, and the national team was around Victoria a little bit, so I got to watch those guys and learn from them. — Steve Nash

In Latin America the border between soccer and politics is vague. There is a long list of governments that have fallen or been overthrown after the defeat of the national team. — Luis Suarez

The Aussies have spent so much time basking in the glory of the last generation that they have forgotten to plan for this one. It's just like the West Indies again; once their great names from the 1970s and 80s retired, the whole thing fell apart.

The way things are going, the next Ashes series cannot come too quickly for England. What a shame that we have to wait until 2013 to play this lot again. — Geoffrey Boycott

The only thing I want is the respect of the fans of Liverpool and the fans of the national team of Uruguay. — Luis Suarez

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

It was a dream start, a perfect start for us. We had to start qualification away from home in Portugal, the group favourites - and I still think they are the group favourites. It was a historic result to win against a big team in Europe, so I am very happy for my country and for my people. They were all looking to the national team. This victory is for them and we will try to do the best that we can until the end of qualification. — Lorik Cana

I am completely honest and truthful when I say I don't want a gold for myself. I want a gold for the team. You go up there and do it as a collective group and it's so much more satisfying, I mean you look around and you see the faces and just wow, this was a team effort and we did this together. It's incredible and that's my dream. I wanna win a gold medal and see the flag go up, hear the national anthem and just know that I did it with my brothers standing next to me. — Jonathan Horton

If a team lives up to its role as favorite, it will have earned the World Cup. By the way, Adidas grew by about 30 percent in Brazil even without sponsoring the national team. — Herbert Hainer

Romney-Ryan is likely the best matched 'team' that has been on a national ticket in a very long time. — Bob Beauprez

I liked to play against all the teams in the National Football League or the American Football League, because they were always a challenge. — Jim Otto

It's pretty hard to say no when a vice president-elect and a president-elect ask you to be part of the national team. — Christine Todd Whitman

When I wear the national team shirt, its sole contact with my skin makes it stand on an end. — Diego Maradona

When I was growing up, you didn't know there was a women's national team. Now girls grow up dreaming of playing for Canada. — Christine Sinclair

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

Remember, the conversation between you and your horse must never be dull or inert. It should be, "Ask, receive, give. Ask, receive, give." Ask with your body and legs; receive through your body into your hands; give primarily with the hands, but also with your body and legs, so that you can ask all over again, receive again, and give again. The give is your thanks. If you don't give, you must ask harder the next time, and even harder after that, until you end up with a dead or resistant horse. I have heard Major Hans Wikne, coach of the Swedish dressage team and head of the Swedish National School for Instructors, say so many times, "For everything you ask from your horse, your must give back a little more. The give is more important than the take." Riding is much more than a push-me-pull-you between leg and hand. — Sally Swift

I'm not saying I didn't have ample time to recover, ample time to get to my best, I felt this year I did fine. When I stepped on the field for the national team, I was ready and able to make an impact, to score goals, to create chances. — Tiffeny Milbrett

The enduring responsibility of the United States Air Force is to provide strategic deterrence for the Nation and fly, fight and win as an integral part of the Joint Team. Together with our brothers and sisters in arms, we underwrite the national strategy of defending the Homeland and assuring allies, while dissuading, deterring and defeating enemies. — Norton A. Schwartz

Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports ... basketball. I use it because you're naive if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket ... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. — Sarah Palin

When I first made the team I didn't even know there was a national team. So to meit was all new. When I got asked to go on the trip to China I was 16. I said, 'well you know what I have to ask my parents.' So I called home and I am like, 'Mom and Dad can I go to China?' They were like 'sure.' — Kristine Lilly

The viewing figures we saw earlier in this book suggest that sport is the most important communal activity in many people's lives. Nearly a third of Americans watch the Super Bowl. However, European soccer is even more popular. In the Netherlands, possibly the European country that follows its national team most eagerly, three-quarters of the population watch Holland's biggest soccer games. In many European countries, World Cups may now be the greatest shared events of any kind. To cap it all, World Cups mostly take place in June, the peak month for suicides in the Northern Hemisphere. How many Exleys have been saved from jumping off apartment buildings by international soccer tournaments, the world's biggest sporting events? — Simon Kuper

Portugal have a national team called Cristiano Ronaldo and a group of players who run after him. — Carlos Queiroz

If the UCLA teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s were subjected to the kind of scrutiny (other schools) have been, UCLA would probably have to forfeit about eight national championships and be on probation for the next 100 years. — Bill Walton

If you made me the national commissioner of football, I'd tell you one thing that I would mandate. The second Saturday in September, we're going to have conference day. Everybody from the SEC plays a Big 12 team. Everybody from the Big Ten is going to play the ACC. Everybody from the Big East is going to play the Pac-10. — Lou Holtz

The whole kiss-and-tell thing is a negative approach that often happens in a World Cup. We will see negative stories about the players and it can affect their confidence and the overall performance of the national team on the pitch, let alone the bid to actually stage the competition. — Gary Lineker

The Democrats continue to snipe at Bush. They'll never give it up to him. You know Teddy Kennedy and Tom Daschle pick more nits than a father and son spider monkey team who know they're being followed by a National Geographic film crew. — Dennis Miller

Indian cricket, and the youngsters themselves, are dealing with issues inconceivable a few summers ago. Riches and all the attendant temptations are thrown at them before they have started shaving regularly. It's not their fault. It's no one's fault. That is the marketplace. Inevitably, though, it can distract attention from the long struggle towards mastery. Cricket does not give itself away; it expects players to apply themselves, to think and study and seek. It plays tricks, too, pretends that sixes and slower balls and the other shortcuts matter. Cricket sets traps, flatters players and calls them kings when they are barely princes. — Peter Roebuck

I live with fellow speed skaters and National Team members Heather Richardson, Sugar Todd and Mitch Whitmore, and Sugar lives up to her name. She spoils our household with baked goods, and not just at Christmastime. — Brittany Bowe

I wear the number 10 Jersey for the US National Team in honour of the Greatest athlete I have ever seen: Messi. — Kobe Bryant

When I was really young, the women's national team wasn't on a grand media stage, so my role models were male basketball and male American football players. — Abby Wambach

Actually, the Kentucky moment was better than winning the two National Championships, because it was the epitome of what I try to get from a team in a crisis situation. — Mike Krzyzewski

The European Commission says that people who are working the country can play in the national team. Perhaps Didier Drogba can play for England after five years. We have to protect against that. — Michel Patini

Science can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world. — Vannevar Bush

At Alabama, our players don't win Heisman Trophies. Our teams win National Championships. — Bear Bryant

I am a believer in passing the ball on the ground, I was lucky to be part of teams like that at Arsenal, with the French national team and with Monaco and at Barcelona. I know you can win in other ways, but I believe that is the way football should be played. — Thierry Henry

High national emotions are permissible when a soccer team is playing precisely because they are impermissible at most other times. There aren't, simply, many other places where you can sing your national anthem until you lose your voice without causing a riot. In the context of soccer, flag-waving nationalism - even chauvinistic, anti-foreigner, flag-waving nationalism - is acceptable in Britain. — Anne Applebaum

Being named as a finalist for the USA Basketball National Team is an unbelievable feeling and an opportunity that is truly humbling. It is an honor to be included with such talented players and I look forward to the chance to represent my country this summer. — James Harden

The captains of England and Australia can barely exchange pleasantries these days without a body-language expert immediately declaiming on the angle of their handshakes. — Lawrence Booth

I honestly believe that if you are willing to out-condition the opponent, have confidence in your ability, be more aggressive than your opponent and have a genuine desire for team victory, you will become the national champions. If you have all the above, you will acquire confidence and poise, and you will have those intangibles that win the close ones. — Bear Bryant

If I feel ragged, my prep team seems in worse condition, knocking back coffee and sharing brightly colored little pills. As far as I can tell, they never get up before noon unless there's some sort of national emergency, like my leg hair. — Suzanne Collins

Despite the situation in Cuba, I had a chance to play on the national team; and compared to other baseball players and other people in Cuba, I had the opportunity to live at a level that was not very high class but in the middle. — Yoenis Cespedes

Being successful means good results for the national team at first in the regional competitions like the Asian Cup and keeping in mind to go for Gold at a World Cup in the future. — Berti Vogts

When I started to play football, when I was around 15, 16, I remember the players that played on the national team and noticed that it was only typically Swedish guys. — Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Times were good. No, they were great. My company had just passed six figures in revenue, and it was headed to break the seven-figure mark. My team grew to almost twenty people, all of whom were passionate about the business and exceeded my expectations. Various local and national publications were calling me to secure an interview so that they could highlight me, a young entrepreneur with great potential. — Kevin D. Johnson

Cooper was my road roommate, and also happened to be the first African American player drafted by a National Basketball Association team. — Bob Cousy

Bin Laden wasn't all that central to the terrorist network any more, but taking him down created a kind of national catharsis. It's been a really, really long time since we had something to celebrate that didn't involve a sports team. I'd rather it had been a non-death-related occasion, but we'll take what we can get. — Gail Collins

When you're with your club team, every week you have a performance to judge. But when you're with the national team, it's a little different because you might not play for three or four months at a time. Things change constantly. — Landon Donovan