Quotes About Football

In L.A., nobody is talking about football. No television stations. You see it nowhere.

None of us are claiming that the statistical analysts understand the game of football as well as the football coaches do, or that our analysis should take precedence over the informed opinions of experts. I'm not saying that at all.

I'm a massive football fan, so when Ladbrokes approached me and asked me to take a look at the statistics, I jumped at the chance.

Show me a team of the stature of Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid, or Barcelona who is not obsessed with winning the Champions League. If they are not, I'd be surprised why they play in it.

It's fun to look over there and see a guy with as a great stature as John Elway. It's really cool that he went to one of my games.

It's really flattering to know that a club of Real Madrid's stature is interested in me.

In football, the hero and legend status is given out far too easily for me.

I've always really just liked football, and I've always devoted a lot of time to it. When I was a kid, my friends would call me to go out with them, but I would stay home because I had practice the next day.

If a Middle Eastern sheikh comes to buy Bayern Munich, he could buy 49 per cent. Fifty-one per cent must stay in Germany with the club. That law came about because of the developments of international football.

To play a match between Boca and River in Madrid, it's weird. But as a player, it is important to stay focused on the match.

I just have to stay focused and play football with a smile on my face.

I had to take up a new challenge and I always want to stay true to myself. My last six months at Celtic were a tough time but, at the same time, I'm gone from there now, and I'm enjoying my football again.

I played for Sampdoria and stayed there 15 years. Of course, I could have gone to Juventus, to AC Milan, to Inter Milan many times, but I preferred to remain because Sampdoria were my family, from the owners to the players.

Wolfsburg might be a smaller club when you look at reputations and I thought about it long and hard. I could have stayed at Chelsea. Mourinho told me that I would get my chance. You have to make a decision, though, and in the end I only wanted to play football again.

I stayed in Milan for six years. I stayed in Madrid for four years. I played in Brazil for nine years, so I always think about the good projects.

I could have stayed at Southampton until I retired and finished my career there.

At 13, I was a big, totally uncoordinated, hopeless football player. I responded to somebody else's rules, and I stayed just good enough to get a scholarship to Columbia, which was looking for scholar-athletes.

Ryan Giggs pretty much won everything there is to win in the game. He made over 900 appearances for the club and always stayed loyal to Manchester United, which is really impressive.

I probably would have played baseball if I had stayed in California... But I like Oklahoma better now. Football is bigger here. It's more exciting, anyway.

English football is very different, and I had to adapt to it much more than I would have had if I had stayed in the Russian league. But after a season, I felt a lot better, a lot fitter.

My parents wanted me to stay in England because they love the football here and how the people feel about football. It was important for them, too, that I stayed in the Premier League.

When I left Liverpool, I could have stayed in England but that would have meant joining clubs that didn't play football - just a long-ball game.

Clubs have always wanted to buy me during the summer but I have always stayed loyal because I wanted to stay at Arsenal.

The fact that on the day I came back to City we stayed in the UEFA Cup through a last-minute own goal against Midtjylland and then won a dramatic penalty shoot-out made me smile.