Quotes on Soccer

If there is one thing in this planet that has the power to bind people it is soccer.

The first World Cup I remember was in the 1950 when I was 9 or 10 years old. My father was a soccer player, and there was a big party, and when Brazil lost to Uruguay, I saw my father crying.

To me, being the best means proving it in different countries and championships.

I'm living a dream I never want to wake up from.

Soccer is a feast for the eyes that watch it and a joy for the body that plays it

As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.

I will be the one lifting that trophy, not Paolo Maldini. Imagine me hoisting the trophy. It is an image I have in my mind and I want to make it a reality. We have world-class players and, believe me, they are in the mood to do it. The atmosphere around the club at the moment is just top-class.

If you're going to be a footballer, be a great one.If you're going to have a dream, dream big.

It seems that soccer tournaments create those relationships: people gathered together in pubs and living rooms, a whole country suddenly caring about the same event. A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern societies.

After the '96 Olympics, we all started believing that this is bigger than we thought, and we were willing to do the work. We knew that it was up to us, the players, to make soccer successful.

You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it.

What motivates me is an ideal of thinking about how football should be. And to try to get near this way of playing. And to try to improve all aspects of my personality that can help me get near this ideal way of playing football.

Our life before moving to Washington was filled with simple joys...Saturdays at soccer games, Sundays at grandma's house...and a date night for Barack and me was either dinner or a movie, because as an exhausted mom, I couldn't stay awake for both.

Play for the name on the front of the shirt, and they will remember the name on the back

Crime is fast destroying the moral fabric of South African cities, and is becoming a major threat to South African democracy as well as the prominent manifestation of a "class war" that is largely a continuation of the "race war" of yesterday.

It's a 90 minute game for sure. In fact I used to train for a 190 minute game so that when the whistle blew at the end of the match I could have played another 90 minutes.

No matter what activity or practice we are pursuing, there isn't anything that isn't made easier through constant familiarity and training (I think you can apply this to soccer as well)

I loathed the game, and since I could see no pleasure or usefulness in it, it was very difficult for me to show courage at it. Football, it seemed to me, is not really played for the pleasure of kicking a ball about, but is a species of fighting.

Pele called me the greatest footballer in the world. That is the ultimate salute to my life.

Whatever happens, there are always things you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have scored a third. That's perfectionism. That's what makes you progress in life.

Soccer is an art more central to our culture than anything the Arts Council deigns to recognize.