Football Quotes - Page 13

Football is so barbaric. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking by playing it. I feel almost like I escaped from boot camp.

If you grew up in a household with a football coach who looks like a drill sergeant, you would think you would be tough.

The first 90 minutes of the match are the most important.

Some of the money going to the rookies can now be spent on people who have proved their worth. After all, the average playing life of a pro football player is about eight years and it is only fitting that the veterans get something for their efforts.

The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. That’s how I see football, that’s how I see life.

I realized it might be possible to do such a thing, run for money, trot for wages on piece work at a bob a puff rising bit by bit to a guinea a gasp and retiring through old age at thirty-two because of lace-curtain lungs, a football heart, and legs like varicose beanstalks.

I think if Tottenham are going to be top four side, the fans and the club will need to get away from the philosophy of 'pretty football', that's got to go.

It's the journey that matters. Learning is more important than the test. Practice well, and the games will take care of themselves.

I am delighted to be here at Arsenal and to be part of one of the great teams in English football. It's a huge satisfaction to join this great club and it’s been a dream since I was young to play in the Premier League. I was attracted by the philosophy of football and Arsène Wenger’s 'touch' at this club. I have always admired Arsenal with its great history and reputation, and I now hope to achieve great things here. I’m very proud to be a Gunner and I will give my best for all the Arsenal fans.

The truth is my idea has been to always stay at Barcelona and see out the rest of my career here. Like I always say, one doesn't know what can happen in the future, but if it were up to me to decide, I would stay at Barcelona for the rest of my career.

I have changed nothing, my style of play is still that of a child. I know that above all it is my job and that I should approach it in another way, but one must not lose sight of the fact that football is a game. It is imperative one plays to amuse oneself, to be happy. That is what children do and I do the same thing.

Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.

I have never asked to be the highest-paid coach in football. I have never asked to be paid like a Super Bowl-winning coach. I have never asked for more power.

If you train hard, you'll not only be hard, you'll be hard to beat.

You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.

I've never played for a draw in my life.

Everybody is entitled to believe. Churches have exactly the same right to exist as a football club, a trade union or a political party. But if you and I set up the Church of the Fairies of the Garden, then I don't think we should automatically be meeting the queen, be entitled to seats in the House of Lords or get public money for our fairy schools.

In a bygone era, penalty-takers would put their laces through the ball and threaten to put a permanent bulge in the netting. For reasons that remain a mystery, the modern preference is for side-footed placement and so the dilemma of goalkeepers has changed from whether to take a guess at dive right or left to if they should dive at all. Or at least that ought to have been their reappraisal. Almunia was feted as the hero in Rome but had he and Doni stayed in the centre of their goal then the number of saves they made in the shoot-out would have been doubled.

I like to watch good football so I like to watch good players. I like Cristiano Ronaldo, Andres Iniesta, Xavi and Wayne Rooney.

The biggest regret of my whole football career was leaving White Hart Lane in 1970.....my interest in football weakened after that. I was heartbroken

I don’t see the problem with footballers taking their shirts off after scoring a goal? They enjoy it and the young ladies enjoy it too. I suppose that's one of the main reasons women come to football games, to see the young men take their shirts off. Of course they’d have to go and watch another game because my lads are as ugly as sin.

The only place you can win a football game is on the field, the only place you can lose it is in your hearts.

You can do more, you can always do more.

My advice to defensive players: Take the shortest route to the ball and arrive in a bad humor.

Baseball and football are very different games. In a way, both of them are easy. Football is easy if you're crazy as hell. Baseball is easy if you've got patience. They'd both be easier for me if I were a little more crazy - and a little more patient.