Soccer Football Quotes

Remember I've seen a video tape of a Scotland-England match and I've seen him miss a chance from five yards. It was against England and he couldn't score. So what does that say? ~ Berti Vogts

I feel I have grown up. I am a man. It's important in my football too. When everything is good, I don't think you grow up fantastically, I think maybe you need a few problems to grow up. It is good if people in England have started to admire me. I think I have changed a little since the World Cup. I am stronger with my mentality and with my game as well. ~ Cristiano Ronaldo

The English public doesn't really like Shakespeare; it prefers football. ~ Hesketh Pearson

England can end the millenium as it started - as the greatest football nation in the world. ~ Kevin Keegan

If you keep asking me questions, I will continue to find excuses. ~ Gordon Strachan

He predicts things. I have often heard him say things which are proved right minutes later. Its really impressive - almost mystical. ~ Didier Drogba

In England, they say that Manchester is the city of rain. It's main attraction is considered to the timetable at the railway station, where trains leave for other, less rainy cities. ~ Nemanja Vidic

If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be. ~ Bill Shankly

It has been so long since Liverpool won the title, I was a 12-year-old Everton fan the last time it happened. ~ Jamie Carragher

International football is the continuation of war by other means. ~ George Orwell

I would be much more annoyed if we hadn't won the game. As a manager, you have to see the positives and I think Pires has a vaccine for the rest of his life. ~ Arsene Wenger

A player who dives and wins a penalty in Portugal, or Spain or Italy is considered clever, experienced, cunning, someone who understands the game. In England a player who wins a penalty like that is a cheat. ~ Jose Mourinho

It is like when you go to war: we have to know how our enemies attack and defend. ~ Jose Mourinho

This is a game between players from 12 national sides, a game that if you have a friend in China, in Brazil, in Qatar ... in half the world he wants to watch. I was thinking of this game when I signed for Chelsea. ~ Luiz Felipe Scolari

Titus Bramble: The only explanation for his existence in the Premiership is that he is already here. ~ Pete Gill

Stress is when you're 29 years old, playing for Rochdale, with an expiring contract and a mortgage to pay. ~ John Gregory

Drogba is a fighter. He is the kind of player I would say 'With you I could go to every war.' ~ Jose Mourinho

England are very light up front. Eriksson's decision not to include Jermaine Defoe can be declared an error of judgment, regardless of Rooney's situation. The Swede should have forgone one of his nine midfield players; much will have to go wrong for Jermaine Jenas to get a game. ~ Matt Dickinson

Eleven against eleven they never beat us. ~ Jose Mourinho

Is this good for English football? In the short run, Chelsea's rise has broken up what was turning into an irritating Arsenal-Manchester United duopoly. But football leagues (look at Scotland, look at Spain) can get along OK with duopolies. A monopoly, however, is a disaster. Everyone else in the Premiership has to operate on some kind of business footing, and the terror stalking Highbury and Old Trafford is that Chelsea will be immune from financial discipline forever. ~ Matthew Engel

Do you have a brother or cousin in Ivory Coast, because I don't have the money to bring you to Porto. ~ Jose Mourinho

Only if we realise how sh*t we were at Blackburn can we improve. ~ Paolo Di Canio

I tried to nutmeg him. It never came off and he gave me a slap on the back of the head and told me to start behaving ~ Steven Gerrard

I understand the intensity of the supporters. I wonder how they could turn up for work on Monday morning after we lost 5-1 to Manchester City. ~ Alex Ferguson

Football's all about 90 minutes ~ Glenn Hoddle

We can't run. We can't pass. We can't stop the run. We can't stop the pass. We can't kick. Other than that, we're just not a very good football team right now. ~ Bruce Coslet

I actually don't feel the years passing, although the younger players make sure to remind me of my age. If there's a clip of Bobby Charlton playing or a game's in black and white they'll ask: Were you playing in that Giggsy? ~ Ryan Giggs

We're in the top six, we've got five points and I've told the lads we need another 80 to win the League. ~ Joe Kinnear

I've got a temper if I need it. Nothing wrong with losing your temper, if it's for the right reasons. ~ Alex Ferguson

What Carew does with a football, I can do with an orange. ~ John Carew

Germany are a very difficult team to play ... they have eleven internationals out there today. ~ Steve Lomas

I didn't do anything [during the game]. I only had one shot on goal and I did not create any chances. I was horrible. Maybe I should have left the pitch earlier. ~ Robinho

I asked the players: 'Do you want to enjoy the game? Or do you want to enjoy after the game?' The players told me they wanted to enjoy after the game so I said: 'OK, then we will enjoy after the game'. ~ Jose Mourinho

At the highest level the first two yards are in your head. ~ Bob Paisley

There is such a thing as everyday, ordinary, vulgar ecstasy; the ecstasy of anger, the ecstasy of speed at the wheel, the ecstasy of ear-splitting noise, ecstasy in the soccer stadium. ~ Milan Kundera

Scots they're either nice or they're horrid and these two are horrid. The Scots wont like that Eamon, thats bordering on racism. Its not racism its ethnic criticism Bill. ~ Eamon Dunphy

In England everything is liberalised. Within certain boundaries and rules everybody can do what he likes. Maybe London's society has a different tempo, a different dynamic. London is fast, productive, creative but it is not England. If you want to transfer that to football, you could say: in the four big English clubs and maybe in the one or two behind them there is a top level. Everything that comes after that rather mirrors English society. It's honest, fair and hard, sometimes also fast, but not always so perfect. ~ Jens Lehmann

Anger infests Lee Bowyer's simple mind. He could get sent off playing solitaire. ~ Henry Winter

I don't have to be jealous of Barcelona because they have 100 years of history and have won the European Cup once. I have only been managing for five years and I have the same amount of Champions League trophies to my name. ~ Jose Mourinho

I'm very happy to have moved to West Ham, because I can play for a better team than Sheffield Wednesday. ~ Paolo Di Canio

I'm the same as maybe six or seven people in every ten - I can't take f***ing criticism. ~ Martin Jol

Other countries have their history. Uruguay has its football. ~ Ondino Viera

With a body like he has, I want him to be a bully. But he is too nice - he is perfect son-in-law material, but I don't want a team of son-in-laws. ~ Graeme Souness

Work on your strong points because they are what made you. ~ Arsene Wenger

I take pride in the fact that people go home having felt that for 90 minutes today, life is beautiful - and that's it, basically. That's why professional football exists. ~ Arsene Wenger

He lived in a fantasy world. There was not a day when he didn't add some Mickey Mouse story about a club that wanted him. First of all, he came in and told me that Arsenal wanted to buy him, then the next week it was Manchester Utd, then the next week it was Real Madrid. He made it clear that he did not want to be at the club so, in the end, there was only one thing I could do - send him to Wigan. ~ Joe Kinnear

It is customary for columnists to complain about the excesses of Premiership footballers, whenever - as happens regularly - there is an incident involving some combination of sex, drugs, drink, violence and the constabulary. But modern footballers have a lot of both money and disposable time, a combination that has proved a recipe for personal disaster throughout history. And these incidents take place generally round night clubs rather than football clubs. The average Premiership player who turned up for work drunk would have a career-expectancy measurable in minutes. ~ Matthew Engel

If someone states that Ajax played a negative game then maybe we are smarter than Manchester City. ~ Ronald Koeman

According to Ferguson, grey things are invisible. Apparantly its just total luck that planes manage to find aircraft carriers in the middle of the ocean. ~ Nick Hancock

People say you're too good - you're never too good to go down, believe me. I've seen it at Leeds. We had a better team at Leeds than we have now and they went down eventually. ~ Jonathan Woodgate

There isn't an injury known to man that Bryan Robson hasn't had. ~ Alan Parry

One accusation you can't throw at me is that I've always done my best. ~ Alan Shearer

I am a fascist, not a racist. I give the straight arm salute because it is a salute from a 'camerata' to 'camerati'. The salute is aimed at my people. With the straight arm I don't want to incite violence and certainly not racial hatred. ~ Paolo Di Canio

Not many people like him, he's an angry man. He'd go after his own shadow. ~ Stephen Hunt

I've never tried to hide the fact that it is my intention to become the best ~ Cristiano Ronaldo

The poor Geordies are in the process of being rebuffed by every sentient human being whose ambition in life is more than simply to pocket six million quid for having been a failure and run for the hills. They want beautiful, flowing football and tangible success, at St James' Park. Fine. I, meanwhile, want Jessica Alba and the Nobel prize for literature. I make my prospects slightly more realistic. ~ Rod Liddle

Do you know who I am? Why, have you forgotten? ~ Rio Ferdinand

What are they going to do, shoot me? It's not war you know. ~ Harry Redknapp

People say I'm hard, I'm Mr Angry. I'm this, I'm that. I just want to win matches. There's no point going out there and being Mr Nice Guy. We get 55,000 at Old Trafford and I don't think they want fellas going out there and thinking: Ah, if we lose, so what? ~ Roy Keane

As a footballer's wife, I take great exception to the way we are portrayed in Footballers' Wives. ~ Karren Brady

It's not a problem. In four or five days I will be beautiful once again. ~ Cristiano Ronaldo

So, Arsenal have signed Arsene Wenger because his name sounds a bit like the club. How long before Man Utd sign Stefan Kuntz? ~ Frank Skinner

It's a strange atmosphere always over there, it is darker and less glamorous, and you don't feel as high. It is a different kind of test - can you raise your level in a less exciting environment and perhaps still a very difficult one? ~ Arsene Wenger

Laddie, that man scored 200 goals in 270 matches - an incredible record - and he has won cup after cup as a manager. When he talks, pin back your ears. ~ Bill Shankly

Saturday comes again, welcome or not, it comes again like it always does, welcome or not, wanted or not, another judgment day - The chance to be saved, the chance to be damned. ~ Brian Clough

I will have to make tactical decisions, technical decisions and emotional decisions. This time it was a tactical one. ~ Tony Adams

In football, the worst blindness is only seeing the ball. ~ Nelson Rodrigues

Every time I went away I was deceiving my mum. I'd tell her I was going to school but I'd be out on the street playing football. I always had a ball on my feet. ~ Ronaldo

A terrific game, even on the losing side I could enjoy it. ~ Nigel Worthington

However good an English team is, they will always have an additional advantage. It is that European players know that their English opponents will come at them in the belief they will win, and they can always be guaranteed never to stop fighting. They have a natural aggression that they are born with. If it ever goes, English football will lose its most valuable dimension. ~ Johan Cruijff

[F]or the most part football these days is the opium of the people, not to speak of their crack cocaine. Its icon is the impeccably Tory, slavishly conformist Beckham. The Reds are no longer the Bolsheviks. Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished. And any political outfit that tried it on would have about as much chance of power as the chief executive of BP has in taking over from Oprah Winfrey. ~ Terry Eagleton

I have the chance to do for a living what I like the most in life, and that's playing football. I can make people happy and enjoy myself at the same time. ~ Ronaldinho

Footballers today are forced to conform to a bodily aesthetic that in its rigidity and uniformity makes fashion models look as varied as snowflakes. This wasn't always so. Up until the 1980s most teams in all divisions had a couple of fat ones, a couple of little ones, at least one bandy one, one completely covered in hair, two weaklings and a chap with no neck. This was an era when you didn't need names on the backs of shirts in order to tell who's who, you could clearly identify them with your eyes half shut from the other side of the pitch. ~ Danny Baker

Is it unprecedented for two goalkeepers employed in a match comprising seven goals to be the fixture's most competent protagonists? ~ Pete Gill

Good players win you games, good formations stop you losing them. ~ Gordon Strachan

Cristiano Ronaldo's was the most exciting debut I've ever seen. There have been a few players described as 'The New George Best' over the years, but this is the first time it's been a compliment to me. ~ George Best

I don't get what's happening to Jose Mourinho of late. He's lapsing into the kind of Portuguese moroseness you get from staring at the Atlantic horizon and imagining you're the last place in the world, while listening to endless renditions of the fado. His latest line about 'everyone hates us and we don't care' sounds like vintage Joe Kinnear in the great days of the Wimbledon Crazy Gang. ~ Peter Chapman

People don't know about football. They think they know about it but they don't know much. ~ Jose Mourinho

Astonishing times. Who would have imagined that the Crazy Gang would yield a Hollywood film star (Vinny Jones), a British television ever-present (John Fashanu) and now a televised African dance champion? ~ Giles Smith

Once again it was Gough who stood firm for Scotland in the air ~ Jock Brown

If that lad makes a First Division footballer, then I'm Mao Tse Tung. ~ Tommy Docherty

I'm as happy as I can be-but I have been happier. ~ Ugo Ehiogu

It wasn't a monkey on my back, it was Planet of the Apes. ~ Mick McCarthy

When Rioch came to Millwall we were depressed and miserable. He's done a brilliant job of turning it all around. Now we're miserable and depressed. ~ Danny Baker

Tottenham, and I hope the English fans will forgive me, are a club in mid-table and I need more. ~ Samuel Eto'o

It is one of my biggest regrets that Niall Quinn was not here during my time ... I felt he was an intelligent player. It would have been a good combination with Thierry Henry. What I like with Quinn is if you look at the player who played next to him, he always scored 40 goals because he had a hand for his head and he just put the ball where you were. He was a team player. A top-class player makes other players look good and he had that player. ~ Arsene Wenger

You might as well talk to my baby daughter. You'll get more sense out of her ~ Kenny Dalglish

In a manner akin to the influence of Tiger Woods on the other side of the Atlantic, Thierry Henry has helped kick down a few of the remaining bigoted stereotypes. Through his undisputable class and dignity, Henry has made a deep-seated difference to race relations in this country. Racism will flounder whenever white children grow up with a black man as their hero. That so few comment on Henry's colour is a silent tribute to his impact. ~ Pete Gill

Sometimes I'd like to have a conversation with a friend in a restaurant without feeling I'm being watched. At this rate I will have to go on holiday to Greenland. But maybe the Eskimos would know me. ~ Fernando Torres

When football stars disappear, so do the teams, and that is a very curious phenomenon. It is like in the theatre, in a play, where there is a great star. If the star is not well, the whole cast suffers. ~ Pele

Four wins in four matches. It could not be better ... the world is fantastic. ~ Jose Mourinho

Liverpool can play for only five minutes and win the game, that is the way they are. They pump the ball into the box and with good set-piece delivery they keep you under pressure. ~ Alex Ferguson

The FA would remove him tomorrow if they had a spine, but clearly, in former lives, were cruel to jellyfish which is why they have returned as them now. ~ Martin Samuel

They have weaknesses, the same ones which every attack-minded team has. I'm sure that they will concede more than one at El Madrigal ~ Juan Roman Riquelme

They've kicked our backsides ... we've got to lick our wounds ... ~ Steve Bruce

Only if there's an outbreak of the bubonic plague. ~ Giovanni Trapattoni

You have to play this game like somebody just hit your mother with a two-by-four. ~ Dan Birdwell

Klaus Toppmoller: hair like David Gower and dress sense like Austin Powers. ~ Jon Champion

If it is the case that you need just a first 11 and three or four more players, then why did Christopher Columbus sail to India to discover America? ~ Claudio Ranieri

I felt that we couldn't win the game. It was absolutely shocking. ~ Martin O'Neill