Quotes About Soccer

I used to go to fights in Japan, mega shows at soccer stadiums. They would have all kinds of martial arts fights in one night.

I've played at five World Cups, including one in the U.S. where the distances between the stadiums were also big.

When you are 17, you don't know what pressure is, because you play with the best team in big stadiums with big players. But when I look back now, it's difficult for a 17-year-old to get by and deal with the whole situation.

I've really enjoyed my time with New York City and I'd like to thank Patrick Vieira and his coaching staff for helping me to develop as a player.

I like it in Denmark. The league is very good and all the teams are of a similar standard.

I made the step up from the Conference North to the Conference Premier. The difference in standard is quite big in those two leagues.

I learnt at the Euros that that is the level I want to be at. That is where I want to be. The standard of the strikers there was top class. That is where I want to be for a long period of my career.

I've been to Wembley a couple of times to see England, but the match which stands out for me is the 2008 Carling Cup final against Chelsea. I was there as a fan with the family. That was a great day out.

I have noticed that, for fans in England, the Premier League stands above the rest.

The Besiktas fans are very passionate. When you go out onto the pitch the noise coming from the stands always hits you.

I got used to playing at half-empty stadiums at Al Sadd. There was no one in the stands in Qatar.

There's Pele the man, and then Pele the player. And to play like Pele is to play like God.

You need at least eight or nine men in a ten-man wall.

I would have played Tom Finney in his overcoat - there would have been four men marking him when we were kickin' in.

When I was small, I was the same as everyone else. I used to play in a small council estate nearby. But it's really my family who taught me. I started watching my dad play from the age of two. I wanted to be like him.

I played for the first time when I was three. My neighbour was six, and I went to train with him. But I don't have many football memories from when I was young.

When I was a boy, the neighbours all knew who I was because I'd take a ball with me everywhere I went.

Neil Etheridge in goal and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, they've both come from lower league clubs and done brilliantly.

People expect you to dribble past 10 players and put the ball in the back of the net.

There is a place in the net where the keeper cannot reach the ball.

It's the striker's job to put the ball in the net and it's up to us to make important tackles and blocks.

If you get the cross in there's always a chance I can head it into the back of the net.

If you can imagine you have thought about something your whole life, and you have invested everything you have got into achieving that moment, and then the ball hits the back of the net for England and you are wearing the number nine shirt.

It is absolutely fantastic to have become Netherlands' most-capped player.