Quotes & Sayings About The Game Of Soccer

It's a 90 minute game for sure. In fact I used to train for a 190 minute game so that when the whistle blew at the end of the match I could have played another 90 minutes. — Bill Shankly

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

Yorkie has officially retired about 5 times ... The man's a clown ... People are going on about the game and agents and directors of football and managers losing their jobs, but we should be worried about people like him ... Clowns. That's the last time I'm going to say clown ... If he's the vice-president of FIFA, God help us all. — Roy Keane

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

She had read articles over the years about a man's supposed biological craving for young women: it was all about primeval procreation, in theory, the need to plant seed in fertile soil. Maybe ... She thought of a line from Nabokov: "Because you took advantage of my disadvantage." Lolita. In this case, however, Kristin felt that she was at the disadvantage - not the young thing. The truth was, she feared, all men were Humbert Humbert. Maybe they weren't pedophiles lusting after twelve-year-olds, but didn't Lolita look old for her age? Older, anyway? Sure, there were MILFs in porn, but Kristin had a feeling that considerably more men wanted their porn stars to be students at Duke University than moms from the bleachers at a middle-school soccer game. — Chris Bohjalian

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

If you want to fight hell and the power of darkness that seek to destroy the hearts of our daughters, I know a type of spiritual warfare that creates value in a daughter's spirit. It is called "Taking your Daughter out for tea" or "Going to Her Soccer Game", and it works in direct opposition to the agenda of hell and darkness that wants to destroy their lives. — Jim Anderson

One of my favorite things about soccer is how the art and the passion of the game somehow unites people and nations and classes and races. That's something that comes out of the game and how it's displayed and why people enjoy watching it and supporting it. — Tobin Heath

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

We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn't dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we'll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear. — Curtis Sittenfeld

I don't think I'll ever feel as famous or as popular as I felt when I was a 17-year-old soccer player in Modle. Only about 20,000 people live there and 12,000 of them come to every game. Running onto the pitch each week was just the most fantastic feeling. Nothing can beat that. — Jo Nesbo

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

Soccer is a continuous game, rugby is a continuous game, but for the physical elements that are involved in playing a football game and the number of plays that you play, I don't know that it was ever intended to be a continuous game. — Nick Saban

I'm a soccer mom. I'm T-ball, soccer, karate, homework, keeping them on their schedules. I love being the snack mom, when I get to bring the cut oranges. I have one of those coolers with wheels. I'm at every game, every practice, sitting on my blanket. I love it. — Pamela Anderson

You've probably met moms like that. You say, "Yeah, I scored a goal in the soccer game last night." And she says, "Oh, that's nice. All fourteen of my children are the captains of their teams, and they make straight A's and can play the violin." And you just want to smack her. — Rick Riordan

I was aggressive but I played the game because I loved and enjoyed it. I might have hurt people and I got hurt myself a few times, but not with any malice. When I went on to the field I just wanted to play football. I didn't go out to kick anybody purposely. I just enjoyed playing and if that's aggression, then I'm guilty of that. — Bob Paisley

Jimmy Greaves and Kenny Dalglish had similar know-how, but Dalglish's knowledge and reading of the game was far superior. He was the most complete footballer in British soccer. — Jimmy Armfield

I had to add Oguchi into the list. After all, he's a soccer player - fittest athletes ever. At 6'4 210 pounds, he's one of the most feared men in the world's game.
I've played against a lot of massive defenders. And no one has Oguchi's strength. His shoulders and chest are so big that people confuse him with an NFL player. He can move anyone in the game with one arm, including the best strikers in the world. Guys absolutely fear him. — Charlie Davies

Nearly everything possible had been done to spoil the game: the heavy financial interest; the absurd transfer and player-selling system; the lack of any birth or residential qualifications; the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the press; the monstrous partisanships of the crowds. — J.B. Priestley

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

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

It's not often you find yourself writing about a game that you haven't seen one kick of. But it's not often that the favourites lose 5-0 in one of their most important matches of the season. But all things considered - the difference between expectations of success and margin of victory, the fact of Strachan's debut, the injury to Chris Sutton, the joy it will bring Rangers fans, and the potential financial loss of going out of Europe completely in the first week in August - it is hard to remember the last defeat this bad for any team. — Phil Cornwell

Maybe it was teleportation. The Spirit took you there."
"That might explain my visit to the soccer game, but it doesn't elucidate why I was in two different editions of the bakery."
"Elucidate?"
"Clarify, expound, explicate ... "
"You should have stopped at expound."
"Brandon! I need assistance here. — James L. Rubart

The World Cup experience is more than just the game of soccer. It's an event. And it will fly by faster than you think. It will end and you'll be saying, 'Wow, it's over already?' You have to remember to take it all in and enjoy it. — Cobi Jones

Let me ask you something, in all the years that you have ... undressed in front of a gentleman has he ever asked you to leave? Has he ever walked out and left? No? It's because he doesn't care! He's in a room with a naked girl, he just won the lottery. I am so tired of saying no, waking up in the morning and recalling every single thing I ate the day before, counting every calorie I consumed so I know just how much self loathing to take into the shower. I'm going for it. I have no interest in being obese, I'm just through with the guilt. So this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to finish this pizza, and then we are going to go watch the soccer game, and tomorrow we are going to go on a little date and buy ourselves some bigger jeans. — Elizabeth Gilbert

When I look in the mirror, I don't see a person who's made the kind of impact that Mia Hamm made on the game. She's still my idol, the greatest player and the greatest teammate. She achieved so much in so many different ways. What she did for women's soccer can't be measured. — Abby Wambach

And the world around me was nothing if not an infinity of distractions: cute girls, novels and comic books, my budding record collection, neighborhood boys whistling from the playground under my window, beckoning me to a soccer game. — Aleksandar Hemon

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

Critics of soccer contend that the game inherently culminates in death and destruction. They argue that the game gives life to tribal identities which should be disappearing in a world where a European Union and globalization are happily shredding such ancient sentiments. Another similar widely spread thesis that holds that the root cause of violence can be found in the pace of the game itself. Because goals come so irregularly, fans spend far too much time sublimating their emotions, anticipating but never releasing. When those emotions swell and become uncontainable, the fans erupt into dark, Dionysian fits of ecstatic violence. — Franklin Foer

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

The game's finest mistakes were perpetrated by Djimi Traore, who interrupted his general competence with one air shot, one slice over his own head and a foul so telegraphed that even the lenient referee seemed to have his card out a couple of seconds before contact was made, to show the first yellow of the game. — Phil Cornwell

For the record, the vuvuzela is not my enemy - and I even have, for reasons of self-defence installed a mini-vuvu with surprisingly powerful performance levels around my neck - though I miss hearing the crescendo of noise from the crowd that should accompany a promising attack on goal or a goal itself. Instead, of course, there is the monotone drone - a constant that belies the ebbs and flows of a game. — Richard Calland

I would be much more annoyed if we hadn't won the game. As a manager, you have to see the positives and I think Pires has a vaccine for the rest of his life. — Arsene Wenger

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

But as we went on, and you keep practicing and rehearsing more and more fight scenes, it clicks and you just get it. It's almost like a soccer game. If you take enough shots on target, one of them is going to go in. As soon as it does, something happens and it just registers. I found it a lot easier after that, which was about three-quarters of the way through the shoot. — Luke Pasqualino

If I'd just paid money to watch a soccer game, I'd want to kill someone too (once the buzz wore off and I realized where I was, because the only thing that would make me pay to watch a soccer game is perhaps a half gallon of whiskey). — Tom O'Brien

The news media tends to act like the kids on a young soccer team. We all follow the ball as it moves from one side of the field to the next - like a kids' soccer game. And the kid who ends up scoring a goal was the one who's off to the corner by himself just waiting for the opportunity. — Steve Capus

Manchester United have risen to the pinnacle of the English game at a time when the rewards are so high - thanks to the ticket to the Champions League - that they have resources that only a handful of other sides, through merit or the exploitation of the people of Russia, can approach. — Phil Cornwell

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

Indeed, the maligned American pastime of baseball may be by-far the greatest and best sport by one criterion, when it comes to emulating and training for genuinely useful Neolithic skills! Think about it. The game consists of lots of patient waiting and watching (stalking), throwing with incredible accuracy and speed, sprinting, dodging ... and hitting moving objects real hard with clubs! And arguing. Hey, what else could you possibly need? Now, tell me, how do soccer or basketball prepare you to survive in the wild, hm? — David Brin

[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

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

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

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

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

If this can be termed the century of the common man, then soccer, of all sports, is surely his game ... In a world haunted by the hydrogen and napalm bomb, the football field is a place where sanity and hope are still left unmolested. — Stanley Rous

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

This is the face of our political class: arrogant, authoritarian, and on the level of some banana republic south of the border. Welcome to the New America, where leader-worship has taken the place of politics, Team Red and Team Blue battle it out to see who gets to be El Supremo for the next four years, and politics resembles a prolonged soccer game. — Justin Raimondo

Another atrocity of summer is soccer. When the Euro Cup is on, it brings out the worst in people. It turns them into ravaging beasts who complain when a team they like, which they have done nothing to deserve, slips from grace and loses the match.
An old man sitting beside me at the cafe was watching the men watch the soccer rather than watch the soccer himself. He found their reactions more entertaining than the game.
"All this stuff and nonsense over men kicking a ball," he groused. "And they don't do any of the work themselves."
I told him, "We should just have wars. Then we would not need sports."
He laughed and quite agreed with me. — Michelle Franklin

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

The game of soccer has been able to give me what I wanted out of life. I just remember being a total Tomboy and athlete as a girl, but never having a lack of opportunity. — Tiffeny Milbrett

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

I play for the intense challenges that the game on the highest levels present. The whole team enjoys playng exciting soccer for the fans and my part in that makes me feel good about myself. The whole concept of teamwork is what keeps us all going. It's my role to create scoring chances, and to come through for my teammates is extremely satisfying. — Mia Hamm

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

I grew up in Europe, and soccer was the first organized game I played. When we moved back to the U.S. in the middle of 4th grade, I switched to American football and stopped playing competitively until college, when I played intramurals. — Andrew Luck

A soccer game is a Wagner opera. The narrative sets up, the tension builds, the music ebbs and flows, the strings, the horns, more tension, and suddenly a moment of pure bliss, trumpet-tongued Gabriel sings, and gods descend from Olympus to dance - this peak of ecstasy. — Rabih Alameddine

The truth is that I've never cared anything about sports. In PE, I do my best to get hit with the dodgeball on the first throw so I can sit out and read instead of play. I'd rather eat a hot dog at a baseball game than play baseball. I'd rather paint a soccer ball than kick one. I don't mind running, but only if I'm running towards something wonderful. i don't see the point in running away from anything, ever. -Felicity Pickle — Natalie Lloyd

Okay, on my first night, he tried to chat me up. You know how the story goes. 'You have the most beautiful eyes, I'm very rich, want to see my bedroom?' Blah, blah, blah."
"And because you turned him down, he's more determined than ever," Will guessed, with amazing accuracy. "You did turn him down, right?"
"Of course," I told him, insulted by the insinuation I would drop my knickers for a glass of wine. "Do you think I'd risk my job for a quick tumble in the sheets with him? — Kyra Lennon

Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins. — Gary Lineker

In many ways, my job in soccer was like my job in basketball now. I had to protect the goal. That was the name of the game, not letting the other team score. — Hakeem Olajuwon

To combat the monotony of gym workouts, I started playing soccer. I looked at workouts as training sessions. My soccer training includes squats, pushups, resistance-band work, and sprints. Ninety minutes of running became part of my love of the game rather than a chore. — Adam Richman

Whatever exists is inevitably flawed. Buddha, in his detachment from the world, finds all its hustle and bustle ridiculous because he has nothing to do with it. A cynic finds the feelings of his fellow human beings ridiculous because he has no feelings himself. Someone who does not play soccer thinks it ridiculous to chase around after a little leather ball for hours at a time. He doesn't bother to ask whether this game might be a lot of fun. All he sees is the ridiculousness of grown men playing like little boys. People who do anything will no doubt appear ridiculous to people who do nothing. A person who acts can always make a fool of himself. A person who doesn't never runs that risk. We might even say that life is always ridiculous but death is never ridiculous. — Fritz Zorn

Any parent who tells their kids that they can't attend a school play or go to a soccer match because they have to work is kidding themselves. It's OK to miss a game or two or a performance here and there, but it's not all right to miss the majority of them. — Simon Sinek

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

Soccer's appeal lay in its opposition to the other popular sports. For children of the sixties, there was something abhorrent about enrolling kids in American football, a game where violence wasn't just incidental but inherent. They didn't want to teach the acceptability of violence, let alone subject their precious children to the risk of physical maiming. Baseball, where each batter must stand center stage four or five times a game, entailed too many stressful, potentially ego-deflating encounters. Basketball, before Larry Bird's prime, still had the taint of the ghetto.
But soccer represented something very different. It was a tabula rasa, a sport onto which a generation of parents could project their values. Quickly, soccer came to represent the fundamental tenets of yuppie parenting, the spirit of Sesame Street and Dr. Benjamin Spock. — Franklin Foer

I never felt the same passion for the game in the States and there were a lot of headaches, a lot of obstacles to overcome - it didn't just run itself for the love of the game because soccer is not the No. 1 sport as it is in Europe. — Hope Solo

I feel very privileged to be asked to be featured in another FIFA Soccer release, ... The game gives me the opportunity to play the matches I want to play every day of the week
even while away from the field. — Ronaldinho

There's the beauty of the stage. I don't like filmed theater or opera because you're kind of playing soccer in a hockey game. Either or, they don't do justice to the media and you end up with a hybrid that is purely sensationalistic. Opera is a very theatrical medium that should be seen on a stage with the musicians in the pit in the audience. — Christoph Waltz

I've spent the last fifteen years of my life railing against the game of soccer, an exercise that has been lauded as "the sport of the future" since 1977. Thankfully, that future dystopia has never come. — Chuck Klosterman

One of the reserves came up to me and said 'I'm finding it a bit hard, it's the first time I've ever been dropped'. So I told him to do what Nick Faldo does and work at his game. Next thing I know he's doing exactly what Faldo does, he's taken up golf. — Ron Atkinson

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