Quotes About Soccer

You try and pick up something from everyone you work with and I grew up watching Jame Carragher and it was such an honour to train with Liverpool's first team.

Cristiano is a fantastic player, maybe the best. For me it is a great honour to play with him. You just have to pass him the ball and he does the rest.

For the life of me, I'll never understand why the teams that have the best defences get criticised. Shouldn't clean sheets be a badge of honour for defenders and goalkeepers?

Football was much, much more than I hoped it would be. If I dreamed as a kid, I could never have foreseen such amazing things.

How many times have I beaten Barcelona? I don't know, three times at least.

It has been a huge honour and I am hugely grateful to the managers for the caps that I have had.

Ozil is fantastic. One of the best in the world. Not only a great player but a great human being.

In July 2011, U.S. Soccer announced that they'd fired Bob Bradley and hired Jurgen Klinsmann as head coach. Jurgen had once been a world-class German striker; now he was regarded as a successful, if controversial, coach.

Players such as Gianluigi Buffon, Andrea Pirlo and Mirko Vucinic are all world-class.

I think that the message Zidane has to offer will get through to the players, because he was a world-class player.

During my time playing for England we had Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes. They were world-class players playing for Chelsea, Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal, all legends of the game.

I have always worn the No.10 shirt when I played at lower levels and, obviously, my reference point was always Pele and then Ronaldinho.

I have never seen a talent like Ronaldo. He always scores, scores, scores. The first game he played for Milan, Sienna away, I said to him, 'I can't put you on the pitch. You are 100kg.' 'Mister,' he said, 'don't worry, I will score.' I put him in, and he scored twice.

I realised that the political context had got worse since the 2010 World Cup. I tried to ignore it but I wanted, as a national coach - you may call this Utopia - to make Catalans and Basques feel good about supporting a Spanish side... to unite even the most sectarian and nationalist.

Chicago is one of the greatest places when it comes to sports. It kind of reminds me of my hometown in Split. It doesn't matter how bad the soccer team is, everybody worships the soccer, the players and the games.

I was studying sociology in college and I was a big soccer player. That's something not a lot of people know about me. I'm a girly girl, but I'm also a secret tomboy.

I can remember when I was a 17-year-old at Swansea and Terry Yorath and Tommy Hutchison were in charge.

The African greats who were playing when I was growing up inspired me - players like George Weah, Abedi Pele, Tony Yeboah, Kalusha Bwalya, and all the others who made Africa proud.

Many American players - Paul Caligiuri, Claudio Reyna, Eric Wynalda, Kasey Keller, Tony Sanneh, Michael Bradley and Steve Cherundolo, just a partial list - have sought the income and challenge of Germany.

I have been playing soccer since I was about four years old. You always hope you can reach the top of the profession, that you can play in the big leagues and achieve all of the goals you hope to accomplish throughout your life.

I just wanted to change my life. I wanted to change everything. The first team that called me was Toronto FC. It was a quick choice.

I could hear my friends outside playing soccer while I was expected to stay inside practicing the piano. It was like torture!

I am very lucky that Julen Lopetegui gives me total freedom to move where I like.

No matter what happens to me you better keep playing soccer. And kiss a few guys for me. What the heck, kiss a lot of guys for me! [pp.127]