Quotes About Soccer

Everyone dreams of winning a European Cup final, and I was lucky to do it at just 19.

I remember my first Champions League final in 1996: Juventus-Ajax. That's the clearest memory from my childhood.

To be playing in FA Cup finals at Wembley is obviously a dream come true.

Zidane has tried to get me to improve. Anticipating, reading the play, putting myself in the defensive balance, I know how to do all this. So he expects the same finesse in an attacking sense.

Before I went to Liverpool, I was a striker and then sometimes a No. 8 or No. 10, and my thing was shooting, finishing, and long-distance shots.

Chicharito is a really good player, and his finishing ability is as good as there is anywhere.

My favourite team was always Barcelona. When I was young, I went to see them, my first ever big game. Jari Litmanen was playing there at the time. In Finland, Litmanen is a big hero for all of us.

Football is my first love - Man United, not comedy.

Arsenal plays very well, which fits my style. That's why I moved here.

The team I support is Manchester City. And that's because a friend of mine, who I visited when I was in England, Alexander Zinchenko, plays for them.

Whoever is in place to step forward and play that striker role has to be ready and be prepared to do the work because it is obviously a very tough job up top on your own. You have to put a shift in.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I've learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that's what kids are playing. That's what people are talking about.

God makes me play well. That is why I always make the sign of a cross when I walk out on to the pitch. I feel I would be betraying him if I didn't.

Sure, the Bundesliga would interest me. Why not?

I like to play wide, but as a youth, I played more in the middle as a 10.

When you're wide, you're taught to try and get in at the far post so the ball doesn't go straight across, but from that central position, you can use your instinct where to go.

I'm still operating as a wide player, and I'm still free to express myself, try to get one-v-one and get past someone, and there's no better feeling than getting over a great cross and someone scoring.

The key for me is movement. When the ball comes into the box, or when the wide players get it, that's where I have to be clever and make my runs. That's where I come alive.

I think it's a natural progression: a lot of centre-backs start wide when they're young and move inside.

I would like to do what Cristiano has done: start wide and go into the middle as a No. 10 or 9.

Soccer was the first sport that my parents put me in, and ultimately, all the parents kind of came over to my mom and were, 'We think Channing would be better at football.... We love him, he's really great, but he's kind of hurting our children.' I was just a little wild.

It's true that Tottenham tempted me because it was a young team which was third in the league.

I've been a follower of Arsenal Football Club since I was ten years old.

The footballer I've admired most in the last ten years is Zinedine Zidane... one of those rare individuals who had the skill but also incredible vision.