Quotes about football

A collection of quotes on the topic of sport, hockey, football, play.

Total 355 quotes football, filter:

„There are three things that I know a bit about in my life and that's QPR, my guitar and drugs. I know QPR are the best football team in the world, my guitar is the most beautiful thing I own and that I don't take enough drugs to kill me. It isnt drugs that I need to get rid of; it's the demons that fill my head. Once I have come to terms with my demons, maybe I'll be able to get clean.“

— Pete Doherty English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist 1979

Definitions and objects

Beauty, World, Life

„With each new child, your ability to love grows. It’s not a matter of dividing your love among more children, so that each one gets less of it, but you actually have more to give with each new delivery. Children help you to stop thinking of yourself and expand your horizons. This is a joyful challenge. It’s more difficult than football or any other job, but also more rewarding.“

— Matt Birk Player of American football 1976

Baltimore Ravens’ Matt Birk Stays Centered on Christ http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/baltimore-ravens-matt-birk-stays-centered-on-christ (February 3, 2013)

Help, Thinking, Children, Love

„Look, when you realize how fake it all is; the football, the basketball, the Lady Gaga, the Justin Bieber—you know, who gives you these carbon tax messages. They tell your kids they gotta love Justin Biebler [sic], and then Biebler [sic] says "hand in your guns", "pass the Cyber Security Act", and "the police state is good", and then your children are turned into a mindless vassals—who now, they look up to some twit, instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson, or looking up to Nikola Tesla, or looking up to Magellan; I mean, kids, Magellan is a lot cooler than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated with one ship the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before they got back to Portugal! And when they got back there was only like eleven people alive of the two hundred and something crew and the entire ship was rotting down to the waterline! That's destiny! That's will! That's striving! That's being a trailblazer and explore! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! It's all there! Life is fiery with its beauty! Its incredible detail! Tuning into it! They wanna shutter your mind, talking about Justin Bieber! It's pure evil! They're taking your intellect, your soul, and giving you Michael Jordan and Bieber. Unlock your human potential! Defeat the globalists who wanna shutter your mind!—Your doorways to perception!—I wanna see you truly live! I wanna see you truly be who you are!“

— Alex Jones American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker 1974

Alex Jones: The "Justin Biebler" Rant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMB0KyhPN8, 21 February 2011.
2011

Evil, Universe, Mathematics, Soul

„I am more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world. When all this is over, what are you left with? “

— Lionel Messi Argentine association football player 1987

Personality, World

„Del Piero is the best player in the history of Italian football. He is a person for who I do not only have a lot of respect, but a lot of affection as well.“

— Alessandro Del Piero Italian former professional footballer 1974

Raúl González Blanco, Goal.com http://www.goal.com/en/news/10/italian-football/2014/12/16/7126242/del-piero-the-best-italian-player-ever-says-raul.html

History, Personality

„I was very different from most kids. I would stay home and write and put on shows when other people would go to the football game, and… I think I just put all that energy into wanting to get out of there and do something with my life.“

— Chris Colfer actor, singer, book author 1990

Interview Quotes, Random Quotes

Thinking, Game, Home, People

„It seemed a pity so much Argentinian talent is wasted. Our best football will come against the right type of opposition—a team who come to play football, and not act as animals.“

— Alf Ramsey English association football player and manager 1920 - 1999

Ramsey's indignant opinion of Argentina after England beat them 1–0 in a bruising quarter final in the 1966 World Cup. [World Cup medal honour for Sir Alf, http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/world_cup_medal_honour_for_sir_alf_1_173288, 1 April 2012, ipswichstar.co.uk, 26 June 2009]

Animals

„Football is a great deal like life in that it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness and respect for authority is the price that each and every one of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.“

— Vince Lombardi American football player, coach, and executive 1913 - 1970

Perseverance, Life

„A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.“

— Bill Shankly Scottish footballer and manager 1913 - 1981

Quoted by John Toshack in Kevin McCarra, "How Benítez built Liverpool," http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1691681,00.html The Guardian (2006-01-21)

Men

„He had zero experience but he was really good. The irony is, given the fact that the character can't play very well, is that he's actually a brilliant footballer.“

— Helena Bonham Carter British actress 1966

Of co-star Greg Sulkin in film "66"; Evening Times (Glasgow); Nov 2, 2006; Andy Dougan; p. 3

„We'll be the hardest-hitting football team on the West Coast. Those who don't want to hit people, we'll help them transfer.“

— Jerry Glanville American former football player and sports coach 1941

David Albright, Glanville looking for a little more action at Portland State http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/preview07/columns/story?id=2967161, ESPN.com, August 9, 2007.

Help, People

„The theatre couldn't match what was going on in a court of law or at football grounds. The theatre has never been able to match what goes on anywhere, that's why so few people go.“

— Tom Baker English actor 1934

Law, People

„This, we have to say it, remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all of The Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead … on … arrival. Hard to go back to the game after that newsflash, which in duty bound, we had to take.“

— Howard Cosell American sportscaster 1918 - 1995

Monday Night Football, December 8, 1980.

Dead, Game

„People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.“

— Vince Lombardi American football player, coach, and executive 1913 - 1970

For Team, Problem, People

„Football is the ballet of the masses.“

— Dmitri Shostakovich Russian composer and pianist 1906 - 1975

„The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.“

— Dwight D. Eisenhower American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961) 1890 - 1969

Leadership, Success

„Look, I'm a coach, I'm not Harry Potter. He is magical, but in reality there is no magic. Magic is fiction and football is real. “

— José Mourinho Portuguese association football player and manager 1963

Reality

„I wasn't given the genetics for football. This is my gift right here. I was always well-built. You can't do certain sports without the genetics, and talent, too, of course.“

— Ronnie Coleman American bodybuilder 1964

Ellen Mazo (May 1, 1999) "Building the Image of a Role Model", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p. A-1.

Sport

„Football is now all about money. There are problems with the values within the game. And this is sad because football is the most beautiful game. We can play it in the street. We can play it everywhere. Everyone can play it but those values are being lost. We have to bring them back.“

— Johan Cruyff Dutch association football player 1947 - 2016

In an interview with The Guardian's Donald McRae in September 2014 https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/12/johan-cruyff-louis-van-gaal-manchester-united.

Problem, Game, Beauty, Sadness

„Look at London. Of course it matters to all of us that London's economy flourishes. But the test of the enormous wealth generated in patches of the capital is not that it contributed 20%-30% to Britain's GDP but how it affects the lives of the millions who live and work there. What kind of lives are available to them? Can they afford to live there? If they can't, it is not compensation that London is also a paradise for the ultra-rich. Can they get decently paid jobs or jobs at all? If they can't, don't brag about all those Michelin-starred restaurants and their self-dramatising chefs. Or schooling for children? Inadequate schools are not offset by the fact that London universities could field a football team of Nobel prize winners.“

— Eric Hobsbawm British academic historian and Marxist historiographer 1917 - 2012

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/10/financial-crisis-capitalism-socialism-alternatives (2009).

Wealth, Universe, Star, School

„I thought about quitting after Istanbul because nothing made sense any more…I no longer felt like a man. All of a sudden, football had become the least important thing, precisely because it was the most important: a very painful contradiction. I didn't dare look in the mirror in case my reflection spat back at me. The only possible solution I could think of was to retire.“

— Andrea Pirlo Italian footballer 1979

On the losing the 2005 Champions League final to Liverpool
Ibid [pp. 84-86]

Sense, Thinking, Pain

„I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Football. Bloody hell.“

— Alex Ferguson Scottish footballer and manager 1941

Hell

„Football is like chess, only without the dice.“

— Lukas Podolski German footballer 1985

Fussball ist wie Schach, nur ohne Würfel.
Quoted in David Gordon Smith. "German Football's Greatest Sayings." http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/like-chess-only-without-the-dice-german-football-s-greatest-sayings-a-558638-druck.html Spiegel Online International. 6 October 2008. Retrieved 10 April 2018.

„Ronaldo (Brazilian footballer) was my hero. He was the best forward I've ever seen. He was so fast that he could score a goal from nothing and he struck the ball better than anyone I've seen.“

— Lionel Messi Argentine association football player 1987

Interview with FourFourTwo, 2012 http://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/messi-brazil-striker-ronaldo-my-hero

„The big test in football is how a captain leads under conditions of adversity.“

— Jack Gibson Australian rugby league player and coach 1929 - 2008

„O'Connell: It's been suggested […] by teachers that live football should be shown after kids have gone to bed. Is swearing in football really such a big deal?“

— Stuart Hall sociologist and cultural theorist 1929 - 2014

Rawling, Kelly answer
BBC Fighting Talk (2005)

Teachers

„The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life.“

— Bill Shankly Scottish footballer and manager 1913 - 1981

[Powley, Adam, Robert, Gillan, Shankly's Village: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Glenbuck and its Famous Footballing Sons, https://books.google.com/books?id=Qe7NCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT162&lpg=PT162&dq=%22The+socialism+I+believe+in+is+everyone+working+for+each+other,+everyone+having+a+share+of+the+rewards.+It%27s+the+way+I+see+football,+the+way+I+see+life.%22&source=bl#v=onepage, 2016-08-18, 2015, Worthing, UK, Pitch, 931595421, 9781785310706]

Way, Life

„A big, studly football jock like me? I got plenty of blood to spare. For you, I have anything to spare.“

— Kristin Cast, book Betrayed

Source: Betrayed