Some people believe football is a matter of life and death.
I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you
it is much, much more important than that.
Bill Shankly
English soccer manager.
Football's a difficult business and aren't they prima donnas.
But it's a wonderful game.
Queen Elizabeth II
To Premier League Chairman David Richards,
November 2006.
Every time I went away I was deceiving my mum. I'd tell her
I was going to school but I'd be out on the street playing
football. I always had a ball on my feet.
Ronaldo
Brazilian soccer player.
If a team wants to intimidate you physically and you let them,
they've won.
Mia Hamm
American World Cup Soccer champion.
I'm here to score a lot of goals. It's my speciality, that's
what I've been brought here to do, and I want to score plenty
; like I did with Barcelona. And here, there's every reason
to think I can do it.
Ronaldo
Brazilian soccer player.
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 Woosnam
Welsh soccer player and manager.
To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two
hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood
and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink.
J. B. Priestley
The Good Companions.
In football everything is complicated by the presence of the
opposite team.
Jean Paul Sartre
French philosopher.
Every single day I wake up and commit to myself to becoming
a better player.
Mia Hamm
American female soccer player.
I fell in love with football as I would later fall in love
with women: suddenly, uncritically, giving no thought to the
pain it would bring.
Nick Hornby
Opening sentence from English writer's
book Fever Pitch.
The vision of a champion is someone bent over, drenched in
sweat, to a point of exhaustion, when no one else is watching.
Anson Dorrance
American women's soccer coach.
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
English writer.
Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele.
I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to
be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.
Pele
Brazilian soccer player, considered possibly
world's greatest.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Roy Keane
Irish soccer player and English football
club manager.
I'm sure sex wouldn't be so rewarding as this World Cup. It's
not that sex isn't good but the World Cup is every four years
and sex is not.
Ronaldo
Brazilian soccer player, after winning
2002 World Cup.
Pele called me the greatest footballer in the world. That
is the ultimate salute to my life.
George Best
Northern Ireland soccer player, from
his autobiography, The Good, The Bad and the Bubbly.
The goal was scored a little bit by the hand of God, another
bit by the head of Maradona.
Maradona
Argentinian soccer player, on goal against
England in 1986 World Cup.
Football is all very well a good game for rough girls, but
not for delicate boys.
Oscar Wilde
Irish writer.
I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to
it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual,
is the ultimate champion.
Mia Hamm
American female soccer player.
Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen; soccer is a gentlemen's
game played by beasts; football is a beastly game played by
beasts.
Henry Blaha
The goalkeeper is the jewel in the crown and getting at him
should be almost impossible. It's the biggest sin in football
to make him do any work.
George Graham
Scottish soccer player and manager.
Italians can't win the game against you, but you can lose
the game against the Italians.
Johan Cryuff
Dutch soccer player.
Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer
slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence.
Bobby Charlton
English soccer player and 1966 World
Cup winner.
Whoever invented football should be worshipped as a God.
Hugo Sanchez
Mexican soccer player and coach.
Five days shalt thou labour, as the Bible says. The seventh
day is the Lord thy God's. The sixth day is for football.
Anthony Burgess
English writer.
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
Mexican journalist, quoted in The Soccer
War by Ryszard Kapuscinski (1969).
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
English soccer manager.
If you are first you are first. If you are second, you are
nothing.
Bill Shankly
English soccer manager.
The person that said winning isn't everything, never won anything.
Mia Hamm
American female soccer player.
Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice.
What makes you better is how you react to it.
Mia Hamm
American female soccer player.
When I go to the press conference before the game, in my mind
the game has already started.
Jose Mourinho
Portuguese soccer manager.
We lost because we didn't win.
Ronaldo
Brazilian soccer player.
You can have the top stars to bring the attention, you can
have the best stadium, you can have the best facilities, you
can have the most beautiful project in terms of marketing
and all this kind of thing. But if you don't win... All the
work these people are doing is forgotten.
Jose Mourinho
Portuguese soccer manager.
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