Quotes About Football

When I'm on television, I think that I appeal to the everyday guy, 'cause that's who I am. The guys who go to the football games on the weekends are my viewers, for sure.

My granddad used to mind me at weekends, and if the game was on, and you wanted to get across the room, you had to crawl under the TV. So I've always been a Liverpool fan, and meeting Steven Gerrard was massive for me. He knew who I was before we'd even said hello!

I really enjoy what I'm doing, I really enjoy my weekends watching football. I watch the kids play football and the Saturday before last I was at four games. Then I ended up watching La Liga on telly. On the Sunday I'm the same and I really enjoy it.

When I started analysing games in 2001, I had a DVD recorder. I'd be at home watching the games just on a normal TV, watching what I could and trying to figure out what we would be facing a few weeks later. The problem was, in the team meetings, I'd always have to keep going back and forwards with the footage, trying to get to the right part.

So if one day the result becomes 3-3, for me it doesn't change my mind, because it's football, it's normal. What is not normal is that we haven't been scoring enough goals playing such good football as we've been playing in the last few weeks.

I went off to Harvard Law School for six weeks, and then I said, 'Doggone this, it's not what I want to do.' I remember when I told my dad I was leaving law school, and I wanted to go into football. He said, 'Be a good coach.'

When I got drafted by Minnesota, and I think I said this a couple weeks ago, I think I felt obligated to bring a Super Bowl to Minnesota.

I travel pretty regularly throughout the football season with Arsenal and England, but we don't really get to explore. In the summer months, I get about four or five weeks off, and then I'll jet away to either the south of France, Dubai, or Italy.

It's an unfortunate situation. After such a great play I felt like I got hit late, no flag, broke my hand. That's it. That's pretty much been the story for the past three weeks, and obviously at some point something catastrophic was going to happen, and I broke my hand.

Small players learn to be intuitive, to anticipate, to protect the ball. A guy who weighs 90 kilos doesn't move like one who weighs 60. In the playground I always played against much bigger kids and I always wanted the ball. Without it, I feel lost.

When you find out teams are interested in you weigh up the options. I looked at squads at the clubs, I looked at who was here and what style of football they play and what will suit me more.

When the chance came to join a great club like Liverpool, I weighed up my options and it was obviously the best move for me.

My brother and I were still in high school playing football, and we were both middleweight, and we couldn't find anyone else to fight in our weight class, so we'd fight each other. I was a stand-up fighter, and Ike was a weaving type of fighter, and we fought that way out there at Cy Young's farm, and we put on quite a show.

Because I couldn't cook, I used to take out a lot. I put on a bit of weight and it used to affect my football, so when the gaffer found out, I had to go on a mini boot camp in the season.

It was a big change for me not to go into the weight room and train like a football player - I'd been programmed my whole life to go in and make myself stronger so that I could push people around.

Scoring a goal is an explosion of feelings. It's there immediately - bam! Before you kick the ball, you feel like you're 200 kilos. Then the ball leaves your foot, goes through the air and ripples the net. And for that moment, you're weightless.

I got into the weights because I didn't want anybody messing with me. I wanted people to say, 'Oh, he's so big, I don't want to mess with him.' And second of all, I wanted to be great at football. I wanted to be the baddest dude around because I knew what it was like to not be.

Football is a little bit different as far as lifting weights. We lifted weights every day. It's a different type of sport. So those things, different aspects, they help you in basketball.

When I went to Arsenal I was working really hard on the weights, as Arsene Wenger is very keen on that.

This pro football player once sent me 100 teddy bears, asking me to fly to one of his games and go to dinner. I didn't do it - it was just too weird.

I would welcome sitting for a year. Being able to experience what the NFL is like, settling into a new city. You get a house situated, there's marketing, there's stuff going on you're not used to. Being able to have a year to learn the offense, learn the speed of the game, and coming out in Year 2, you could focus all on football.

I really like Manchester City. They have put everything into trying to sign me so that I can be there and that is welcome.

In football there are lots of origins, cultures, religions and no one feels left out. We all play together and we are all friends. Supporters see that and feel part of the same family, especially in England where you feel very welcome.

Cristiano is a great player with incredible quality, and if he joins Madrid, then he will be welcomed.