Quotes About Soccer

I scored against Arsenal in the Champions League. That's something I will never forget. But I'm one of those people who seems to remember the bad times more than the good. Just the way I am.

I came to New England Revolution as an assistant in 2000 and I took over the hot-seat a couple of months into that season. We got to the MLS cup final that year, and in 2004, 2005 and 2006 - but we lost all of them.

Canada hasn't really been a top footballing country in the world, but I think the next generation of players coming through, I think we can really change that.

My dad loved Deco as a player. He started calling me Deco as a nickname around the house.

The opportunity beckoned me to play for England, but I chose Nigeria because it has always been my ambition to play for the Super Eagles.

I think the FA Cup has great memories and I think there have been Nigerian legends that have played in it as well, like Jay-Jay Okocha and Nwankwo Kanu. They've played in it, so it's a great thing to play in the FA Cup.

Italian football in the eighties and nineties was the most beautiful league in the world. The hardest, most beautiful of all.

Three goals in 90 minutes is possible, there is no doubt about it.

A coach I admire? Jurgen Klopp. No doubt.

It doesn't get any more basic than your backline closing when there's no pressure on the ball. It really is a huge problem if you get it wrong.

During the game, we find endless ways of saying that our team needs to score goals while at the same time not letting any in: 'We need a goal here,' 'We don't want to let one in now,' and so on. ('Here' and 'now' are the words intended to indicate a keen understanding of the complex nature of the particular game, but in truth they mean nothing. Teams always need to score, and never want to let one in.)

Defansç?lar her zaman forvetçilerden daha iyi analizcilerdir.

It is part of the essential Arsenal experience that they are loathed.

By now I felt guilty about what I had got my father into. He had developed no real affection for the club, and would rather, I think, have taken me to any other First Division ground. I was acutely aware of this, and so a new source of discomfort emerged: as Arsenal huffed and puffed their way towards 1-0 wins and nil-nil draws I wriggled with embarrassment, waiting for Dad to articulate his dissatisfaction.

Even the Brazilian way of celebrating a goal - run four strides, jump, punch, run four strides, jump, punch - was alien and funny and enviable, all at the same time.

Más aún que eso, estaba como de costumbre a la espera de que el Arsenal me enseñase que las cosas no siempre van a peor, que las malas rachas terminan tarde o temprano, que se puede cambiar de hábitos, que no es posible perder muchos partidos seguidos.

and at the table next to her was a little boy in a soccer uniform sitting with his mother who told him, The plural of elf is elves. A wave of happiness came over me. It felt giddy to be part of it all. To be drinking a cup of coffee like a normal person. I wanted to shout out: The plural of elf is elves! What a language! What a world!

I've spent the last fifteen years of my life railing against the game of soccer, an exercise that has been lauded as the sport of the future since 1977. Thankfully, that future dystopia has never come.

the national soccer team won the World Cup in 1930 and

When we get there, Coach Byrnes gives us a pre-season pep talk. He carries around this clipboard and whistle and talks really, really fast. "Passtheballovertherenowturnaroundandkickitintothegoalrightnow!" Sometimes I have no idea what he's talking about. I thought I knew everything there was to know about soccer. Boy, was I wrong.

He'd apply his three basic rules, none of which related to what people know as tiki-taka: they were, rather, intense attack, quick pressure when the ball is lost and having one more player in the midfield than your opponents.

some key principles were quickly instilled in him: 'Don't stamp on anybody but don't let anybody stamp on you; keep your head high; two-touch football; keep the ball on the ground.

The ball runs faster than any human, so it's the ball that has to do the running!' which, in seventeen words, just about encapsulates his philosophy.

the ball goes to the other central defender and this one makes a vertical pass – not to the midfielders, who have their back turned to the ball, but to those moving between lines, Andrés Iniesta or Lionel Messi, or even directly to the striker. Then they play the second ball with short lay-offs, either to the wingers who have cut inside or the midfielders, who now have the game in front of them.