Quotes About Footballers

A good thing for footballers is not to think too much, especially when you've got to move to a big team like Liverpool, because that's when you start to confuse your mind.

Footballers do get a hard time, and there is a lot of generalization going on. When you get to meet players and know them as lads, it's always a bit different.

I remember when I was retiring I said to my kids 'I promise you I'll never put on weight' because people always think footballers retire and eat and drink and put on loads of weight.

As footballers that's what we do when it comes to bonuses. we don't sit there and go 'yeah can I get £20million as a bonus.' You have to sit down, 'how much money does the club make, what's their reported loss.' You have to sit and go through it all and go OK, this is what you take, we feel that we should get that if we do this.

In the end, the important thing is that you decide where you will be happy and where you can do well, to show that as well as being footballers, we are people.

Are people like Tom Cruise in touch with their public? I doubt it. Footballers are more like the rock stars of yester-year: they are box office.

I'm not saying that maybe there isn't a kid out there whose behavior hasn't been influenced by me in some way. I'm sure there is. But I can only speak for myself, and if you'd asked if my behavior had ever been affected by people I'd admired from afar, like musicians or footballers, that'd be a yes, totally. Right down to their hand gestures.

I feel sorry sometimes for these sportsmen and women who put in just as much effort as the footballers. For example, athletes train at least as hard as footballers but have to be happy if they can earn enough to finance a decent education.

Footballers from the street are more important than trained coaches.

I think people don't really understand how much footballers are affected by the people in their lives. When we're interviewed, people always ask about managers and tactics and training, but they almost never ask about what's going on off the pitch, and to me, that's just as important to your career.

I won't name them, but we have family friends who are professional footballers, so I grew up around these types. I was around when they retired, and I know how difficult that transition is.

Footballers' 'lack of loyalty,' for instance, is not an indication of players' moral delinquency. Instead, the capacity to move on quickly without forming lasting attachments is a skill that the contemporary capitalist world inculcates and relies upon.

I'm friendly - I've never changed - but some people can be intimidated to approach you, especially younger footballers.

Italian footballers can take a coffee and sit for two hours talking, laughing.

Italian football lost credibility because of the match-fixing scandals - the best footballers didn't want to come.

In the past a lot of Italians emigrated to Argentina, and now us Argentinians, and in my case, us footballers, are returning to Italy. We always try to keep our identity.

I don't necessarily like the things footballers do. All these kissing the badge, just doing it for the clout.

A lack of street footballers dulls the imagination, dulls that natural thinking outside the box. You need that on the street when you're 9 and have to beat a 14-year-old on the dribble. Or if you get knocked out and have to sit on the side and come on.

Little details about young footballers catch your eye when you have been around a big club for a long time. At first, it can be minor things, like the way certain young players stand out from the group when the academy lads cross paths with the senior team on their way to training in the morning.

I'm very happy to play at the World Cup, and that is a message to all footballers and others around the world, that you should believe in your dreams and fight to make them come true.

Boredom does get you into trouble and we footballers have a lot of time on our hands, and sometimes we fill up that time with stuff that isn't always positive.

The trouble for today's footballers is they have too many distractions. We used to get our old players coming to watch training with football magazines in their hands. Now, more often than not, they are checking the share prices.

Footballers nowadays are controlling their image through their own Facebook page so its not the club that controls them anymore, they do what they want at anytime.

The Champions League is a big ambition and all the footballers want to play in it. It is a very important competition.