Quotes About Pre-season

When I started my career, we were running around water parks and ridiculous things like that. You used to drive in dreading pre-season back then, but now you know it's going to be pretty tough, but it's going to be probably what you need. It's going to be good for you instead of just slogging away.

Those are the pictures you want from pre-season, so although we beat a Premiership side, I can take those away with me.

I think every season in pre-season you go into it and everyone is saying, 'they'll be strong next season,' but you never know.

You can learn a lot from Pep Guardiola. From pre-season to the match itself. He has a vision of the game that is impressive.

If you are lucky enough to avoid serious injuries then the body goes on; it's the mind that gives in. And it's the mind that you need to enable you to suffer pre-season every year.

Every summer is important. If you have a bad summer, it can have consequences for the whole season. If you don't get people to rest and to have a very good pre-season, you can start the season chasing.

Obviously scoring goals in pre-season is good to help you bring it into the season, but the most important thing is doing it in the Premier League, doing it in the Europa League and doing it when it actually matters.

I'm a Tottenham player and am determined to go back into pre-season as fit as possible with the aim of impressing the gaffer to try and establish myself in the team.

I never had problems with injuries as a kid or in the youth team. My injuries started at Chelsea, when I broke my foot during a pre-season game. That was just pure bad luck, but after that, I had some muscular injuries, too, so I had to get to know my body better.

I follow tennis, and I actually went to Wimbledon during the summer, and it was nice to get a day off during pre-season to watch it. Basketball as well - I don't have a team; it's just a casual interest - especially when the play-offs come around and the intensity rises.

When you play, of course you want to win, but the most important thing about pre-season is improving your fitness.

Sometimes you feel the emotion. You think this might be my last pre-season or my last Champions League match. But, overall, those thoughts aren't important right now. But the time will soon come

I experienced the heat when I was playing for Madrid. If we went to places like Sevilla early on in the season it was unbearable. Usually you can feel it on pre-season tours in places like Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta. The humidity levels are unreal, but this is different, the first game of the World Cup.

The game [football] has moved on a lot but still, ask most players and they will tell you that pre-season isn't their favourite time of the year.

I did it in pre-season when we had a bounce game, I went in for a slide tackle and my back was in pain, so I came off. I had a scan a couple of days later and it showed that up. I was worried as there was a little fracture in my back but the physio said I'd be fine and he put my mind at ease. I had two weeks off and was told to do nothing.

The mind tells you that you should use the Europa League as your pre-season but you don't really because the players aren't silly, they know it's a real game.

The biggest thing I will miss is 4 July when Everton are due back for pre-season training. I loved that day. I lived for it, getting back with the lads.

I'm playing in the NFL and getting to compete with these guys every single day, getting to play in the pre-season games. That's a dream come true right there.

Pre-season is warm-up for the season so if you can do it in pre-season then you can do it in the season. So it's always better to go out there and give it your all, get your fitness and make sure you perform, because obviously sometimes managers take performances in pre-season to decide if you're going to start the first game of the season.

At school, I was always a central midfielder from a young age. Then, when I joined Villa at 16, the pre-season didn't go too well, so they looked at me as a centre-half.

I had what Leicester gave me but then I worked with a guy around my house, a guy that my agent recommended. I worked with him for the three weeks solid, leading back into pre-season. We were just doing horrible running. Minging running! It wasn't pretty to be fair!

My very first NBA game was against the Los Angeles Lakers; it was a pre-season game against Magic Johnson.

When I joined Newcastle, at the beginning it was difficult. During pre-season, there was no Ramadan and I also didn't score then. So it's a myth. It was about getting into the team, knowing the players better and how they play. My team-mates also have to understand how I play and move.

in those days, before Gazza, before cynical and meaningless pre-season tournaments which somehow still offer a methadone alternative to the real competitions to come, before the ludicrous freneticism of the contemporary transfer market, the newspapers went weeks on end without even mentioning football)