Quotes on Football

I want to be remembered as the guy who gave his all whenever he was on the field.

A lot of fans were drawn to me because they knew that whatever the score was, I was going to run as hard as I could on every play. You don't have that now, you have guys waiting for next week or even next year.

In football, it's the ultimate team sport. You have to have good people around you as a quarterback for things to happen.

Talent doesn't win football games. But talent, heart and desire do. A good coach will recognize what's inside.

I'm totally convinced that the end of my football career is just the beginning of something I haven't even discovered yet.

Yes, it is one of my ultimate aims - it is the ultimate sense of football: to make the people happy, to let them live some emotions that you usually can't get.

Nothing jazzes me up like football. I've acquired more passion of the years, not less. Not to love it wouldn't make sense.

How many black people are there in the higher echelons of any industry? We can talk about journalism, we can talk about politics. So why should football be any different?

The hardest thing in life is reinventing yourself and staying at the top of your game, whilst the hardest thing in football is finding that club you want to stay at.

The nice thing is that when people come up to me, it's the football they remember, not all the other rubbish.

It's a big compliment that so many people want to see me. For them, it's all about football. That's what they remember about me.

We talk about women in football like we are not entitled to the same opportunity and the same access.

The more the technocrats programme it down to the smallest detail, the more the powerful manipulate it, football continues to be the art of the unforeseeable. When you least expect it, the impossible occurs: the dwarf teaches the giant a lesson, and a scraggy, bow-legged black man makes an athlete sculpted in Greece look ridiculous.

I think football is a game where people come together and football should bring everybody together, whether it is religion or skin colour or where you come from. We should be happy to enjoy that moment together, those 90 minutes where we can show love. Because I think football is love - and when love is not there, for what should we play?

I walked away from pro football and a $2.9 million contract with the San Francisco 49ers because I didn't want to develop CTE.

I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life.

I would say, if you come out, they can't take away how you play football. That was the thing for me: once I did come out, it's not going to affect my diving. I can still perform, no matter what anybody else thinks of me. I'm judged for what I do in the diving pool.

I only deal in what is real. To be honest, I've never thought about what I could get out of football or where it would take me. I just wanted to play. I'm the same now.

To be a footballer was just a dream, and I don't believe in dreams. I only deal in what is real. To be honest, I've never thought about what I could get out of football or where it would take me. I just wanted to play. I'm the same now.

When you are playing, it is so hard to think about what life will be like after football. I understand. When you are playing, and you are young, you think you can play your whole life. You think it will never change. But it will change. You can't play forever. No one can.

Football is a great love because I was born into a family of players and therefore born into football. I'm fortunate to have a style of play that a lot of people like. It's a privilege to be able to do what I like best and in my own way, but I'm fortunate that people like it, and that motivates me even more.