Quotes about football

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

Best quotes about football

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

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

Lukas Podolski (1985) German footballer

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.

“There's nothing I'm scared of in football.”

Thierry Henry (1977) French association football player

Attributed

“I wanna play football for the coach — Liverpool’s coach!”

Ian McCulloch (1959) singer, musician

Rolling Stone magazine (2009)

“What Carew does with a football, I can do with an orange.”

Zlatan Ibrahimović (1981) Swedish association football player

answer to criticism from Norwegian footballer John Carew that Zlatan's moves are pointless
Norwegian tabloid VG, April 2002.
Attributed

“In England, football is important for everybody.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

22 November 1996
Quotations from the Public Comments of Arsene Wenger: Manager, Arsenal Football Club (2005)

“I love to play bid whist as much as I love football.”

Emmitt Smith (1969) American football player and sports broadcaster

Angel Beck (October 22, 2000) "Another Game For Emmitt Smith", Syracuse Herald American, p. 27.

“Football season is over. No More Games.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Suicide note (20 February 2005)
2000s
Context: Football season is over. No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt.

“Shi'ite football.”

Pat Spillane (1955) Gaelic football player

Spillane on Donegal's style of play. The team went on to win the 2012 All-Ireland. Donegal Democrat http://www.donegaldemocrat.ie/sport/local-sport/beware-of-praise-from-outside-conaghan-1-3971612

“Football is nothing without fans.”

Jock Stein (1922–1985) Scottish footballer and manager

http://www.redpathalbion.co.uk/Philosophy_Page.htm

Quotes about football

“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 (1987) Argentine association football player

World, Personality

“The day i stop enjoying football is the day ill go to drink tea with my mom”

Juan Román Riquelme (1978) Argentine footballer

Moms, Drink, Tea

“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 (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Leadership, Success

“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 (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

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

Love, Life, Children, People

“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 (1966) British actress

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

“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 (1987) Argentine association football player

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

“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 (1964) American bodybuilder

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

Sport

“Driving a Porsche in London is like bringing a Ming vase to a football game.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

As quoted in Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion (1988) by Neil Gaiman

Game

“Chiefly I remember the horsy smells, the quavering bugle-calls (all our buglers were amateurs--I first learned the Spanish bugle-calls by listening to them outside the Fascist lines), the tramp-tramp of hobnailed boots in the barrack yard, the long morning parades in the wintry sunshine, the wild games of football, fifty a side, in the gravelled riding--school.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

School, Game, Learning

“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 (1990) actor, singer, book author

Interview Quotes, Random Quotes

Life, People, Home, Game

“That’s what I wanted to do. You know, 2 hours. It’s like long-distance running or playing in a football game when you totally run out of steam and the moves you make after you run out of steam, because you’re totally unselfconscious, you’re not even thinking about the mechanics anymore. The moves you make then are incredible.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

From Grace EPK (Electronic Press Kit)

Game, Thinking

“The thing that I think very striking is that no one, or no one I can remember, ever writes of an execution with approval. The dominant note is always horror. Society, apparently, cannot get along without capital punishment—for there are some people whom it is simply not safe to leave alive—and yet there is no one, when the pinch comes, who feels it right to kill another human being in cold blood. I watched a man hanged once. There was no question that everybody concerned knew this to be a dreadful, unnatural action. I believe it is always the same—the whole jail, warders and prisoners alike, is upset when there is an execution. It is probably the fact that capital punishment is accepted as necessary, and yet instinctively felt to be wrong, that gives so many descriptions of executions their tragic atmosphere. They are mostly written by people who have actually watched an execution and feel it to be a terrible and only partly comprehensible experience which they want to record; whereas battle literature is largely written by people who have never heard a gun go off and think of a battle as a sort of football match in which nobody gets hurt.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please" column in The Tribune (3 November 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/ "As I Please" (1943–1947)

People, Feeling, Literature, Question

“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 (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Definitions and objects

Life, World, Beauty

“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 (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

Reality

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

Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) American football player, coach, and executive

For Team, People, Problem

“I prefer to win titles with the team ahead of individual awards or scoring more goals than anyone else. I'm 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? When I retire, I hope I am remembered for being a decent guy.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Personality, Hope, World, Guy

This quote waiting for review.

“Business no longer accompanies football; football now accompanies business.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Común Magazine.
https://revistacomun.com/blog/cuando-el-mundial-dejo-de-representar-al-mundo/

Business

“In life, as in football, the principle to follow is to hit the line hard.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

"The American Boy", published in St. Nicholas 27, no. 7 (May 1900), p. 574
1900s
Context: In short, in life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard!

Life

“You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but in the very least you need a beer.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Variant: You can't be a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline — it helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.

Beer, Help, Country

“The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

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

Alex Ferguson (1941) Scottish footballer and manager

Hell

“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

“Someone said to me 'To you football is a matter of life or death!' and I said 'Listen, it's more important than that'.”

Bill Shankly (1913–1981) Scottish footballer and manager

An interview on a Granada Television chat-show, hosted by Shelley Rohde on Wednesday 20th of May 1981

Life, Death

“Maybe baseball has to accept that it is now more like classical music than popular music, with football and basketball — and soccer? — being the Justin Biebers and Lady Gagas of sports. Baseball need not hang its head in shame. A lot of things that are good and worthy are not popular. And baseball is plenty popular, for heaven's sake.”

Jay Nordlinger (1963) American journalist

2010s, Baseball and Its Worriers (2018)

Music, Sport

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

Bill Shankly (1913–1981) Scottish footballer and manager

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

“(Sports) provides a wonderful opportunity for initiating acquaintance. Regardless of the degree of our civilization, people still thrill to physical combat and admire the man who excels. He who is of proven merit in the field of major sports has shown to all that he is possessed of strength, vigor, stamina, and courage. The great majority of people want to know such a man…How well I have taken advantage of the football reputation it was my good fortune to gain is for others to judge, but I personally am very thankful for the whole experience and the fun and friends it has brought me.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Journal entry (February 22, 1942)

People, Courage, Sport, Personality

“I respect the secrets and magic of nature. That's why it makes me so angry when I see these things that are happening, that every second, I hear, the size of a football field is torn down in the Amazon. I mean, that kind of stuff really bothers me. That's why I write these kinds of songs, you know. It gives some sense of awareness and awakening and hope to people. I love the Planet, I love the trees. I have this thing for trees - the colors and changing of leaves. I love it. I respect those kind of things. I really feel that nature is trying so hard to compensate for man's mismanagement of the planet. Because the planet is sick, like a fever. If we don't fix it now, it's at the point of no return. This is our last chance to fix this problem that we have, where it's like a runway train. And the times has come, This Is It. People are always saying,'They'll take care of it. The government'll--Don't worry, they'll--' 'They' who? It starts with us. It's us. Or else it'll never be done… We have four years to get it right. After that it would be irreversible. Let's take care of the planet.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On the environment
This Is It

Love, People, Secret, Hope

“…the Englishman, George Best, who was an amazing footballer in his day but at the same time he was a bum and a drunk – a bohemian. Because of his soccer art though, he had a royal funeral.”

George Best (1946–2005) British footballer

Dragoslav Šekularac,
quoted in interview with ['Get Out of Here, I am Sekularac', Prvoslav Vujcic, http://www.urbanbookcircle.com/get-out-of-here-i-am-sekularac-by-prvoslav-vujcic.html, Urban Book Circle, 2006-05-01, 2016-05-15]
About

Art, Time

“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 (1976) Player of American football

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)

Love, Children, Thinking, Help

“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 (1941) American former football player and sports coach

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.

People, Help

“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 (1913–1981) Scottish footballer and manager

[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]

Life, Way

“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 (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

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

Children, School, Star, Universe

“If the psychic energies of the average mass of people watching a football game or a musical comedy could be diverted into the rational channels of a freedom movement, they would be invincible.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Source: The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 1 : Ideology As Material Power, Section 4 : The Social Function of Sexual Suppression

People, Music, Game, Freedom

“Van Gaal has a good vision on football. But it's not mine. He wants to gel winning teams and has a militaristic way of working with his tactics. I don't. I want individuals to think for themselves and take the decision on the pitch that is best for the situation… I don't have anything against computers, but you judge football players intuitively and with your heart.”

Johan Cruyff (1947–2016) Dutch association football player

reported in Maarten Meijer (2014). Louis van Gaal: The Biography.

Way, Thinking, Decision, Heart

“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 (1929–2014) sociologist and cultural theorist

Rawling, Kelly answer
BBC Fighting Talk (2005)

Teachers

“I'll play a lot, stake matches. Not like the Russians. They win the championship and then hide for three years. Every few months, anyway twice a year, I'd like to get up a purse and meet a challenger. It's good for the game, keeps up interest in chess, and it's good for the bank account. I want to get some money together. Like take professional football. All these athletes making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Contracts, endorsements. If there's room for all of them, there ought to be room for one of me. I mean, after all, I'm a great goodwill ambassador for the United States!”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Interview by Brad Darrach for Life Magazine, 1971 http://www.bobby-fischer.net/Bobby_Fischer_Articles5.html 1970s

Money, Game

“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 (1979) Italian footballer

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

Pain, Thinking, Sense

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

Jack Gibson (1929–2008) Australian rugby league player and coach

“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 (1947–2016) Dutch association football player

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.

Money, Sadness, Beauty, Game

“OK, David. Here we are on the train to Exeter, to the football club of which I am joint chairman, and where we're doing a charity show with Michael Jackson. You and I have both demonstrated some of the hidden powers of the mind and it would be interesting to hear, David, how you explain some of your incredible achievements.”

Uri Geller (1946) Israeli illusionist

"When Uri met David," Telegraph 12/2001 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/arts/2002/09/11/bablaine11.xml&site=6&page=0

Training

“To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who hits the line hard.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, NY http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly (October 1897) 1890s

Men, Success

“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 (1920–1999) English association football player and manager

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

“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 (1918–1995) American sportscaster

Monday Night Football, December 8, 1980.

Game, Dead

“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 (1934) English actor

People, Law

“I reject the notion of football as warfare. Warfare is warfare. We don't need substitutes because we've got the real thing.”

Don DeLillo book End Zone

Source: End Zone (1972), Ch. 19

“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 (1913–1970) American football player, coach, and executive

Life, Perseverance

“I always thought I wanted to play professionally, and I always knew that to do that I'd have to make a lot of sacrifices. I made sacrifices by leaving Argentina, leaving my family to start a new life. I changed my friends, my people. Everything. But everything I did, I did for football, to achieve my dream.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Family, Dreams, People, Life

“Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesn't thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. I'm just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn't paid to be a professional footballer I would willingly play for nothing.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Money, Making love, Game, Motivation

“Football: A sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Education, Sport

“We heard the army before we saw it.
The noise was like a cannon barrage combined with a football stadium crowd- like every Patriots fan in New England was charging us with bazookas.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“I like football. I find its an exciting strategic game. Its a great way to avoid conversation with your family at Thanksgiving.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

Family, Way, Game

“Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?”

Jim Bouton (1939–2019) American baseball player, writer

Men

“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost -
But HOW you played the Game.

"Alumnus Football”

Grantland Rice (1880–1954) American sportswriter

Game

“Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Women, Men, Friendship

“Do you play football for Pittsburgh? Then why are you such a Steeler?!”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Boys "R" Us

“The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap out of people are now rewarded for it. They call it football.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

People, School, Boy

“Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it's so incredible, it's unbelievable.”

Tom Landry (1924–2000) Coach of the Dallas Cowboys

Game

“I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.”

Nick Hornby Fever Pitch

Source: Fever Pitch (1992)

Love, Women, Pain

“Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Game, Intelligence

“I have always been accused of taking the things I love - football, of course, but also books and records - much too seriously, and I do feel a kind of anger when I hear a bad record, or when someone is lukewarm about a book that means a lot to me.”

Nick Hornby Fever Pitch

Source: Fever Pitch

Love, Books, Feeling, Anger

“If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Game, Dead

“Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Death, Women, Sport

“In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

School

“Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

International Herald Tribune (7 May 1990)
1990s

“Thanks to all these results, people in Portugal are starting know and become more interested in our sport. Tennis is more and more popular in Portugal and we don't talk about only football anymore. I am glad to help in that process.”

João Sousa (1989) Portuguese tennis player

On tennis' rising popularity in Portugal, during the same interview. Source: Intervista esclusiva a Joao Sousa: “Sono d’accordo con Simon, i top player guadagnano troppo” [Exclusive interview to Joao Sousa - 'I agree with Simon, the top players earn too much' http://www.ubitennis.com/blog/2015/11/02/intervista-esclusiva-a-joao-sousa-sono-daccordo-con-simon-i-top-player-guadagnano-troppo/,, Ubitennis.com, Italian, 4 November 2015]

People, Sport, Help

“But I am very confident that David Pleat, the director of football or whatever his title is now days – I am very confident that he, with all his media commitments around the world, knows the market place.”

Billy Davies (1964) Scottish association football player and manager

Feb 2009, http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/Davies-Forest-sign-players/article-715858-detail/article.html
This quote is almost certainly tongue-in-cheek, since Davies does not have a good relationship with Pleat.

World, Confidence

“This is my little disquisition about football: the quarterback, the center, and the towel. Page 116”

Renata Adler (1938) American author, journalist and film critic

Pitch Dark (1983)

“It was true, of course, there was an abnormal level of narcissism in our society, but it did not do, he told himself, to spend too much time going on about it. Society changed. Narcissism was about love, ultimately, even if only love of self. And that was better than hate…. Did it matter if young men thought of fashion and hair gel when, not all that many years ago, their thoughts tended to turn to war and flags and the grim partisanship of the football terrace?”

Alexander McCall Smith book Espresso Tales

Espresso Tales, chapter 3.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Love, Men, Hate, War

“Emmitt Smith is in a position, in my opinion, where he should be the highest-paid running back in football. He's a guy who has gone out and led the league in rushing and been productive.”

Emmitt Smith (1969) American football player and sports broadcaster

Troy Aikman — reported in Ed Werder (August 19, 1993) "Aikman: Smith should be top-paid runner", The Dallas Morning News, p. 8B.
About

Guy

“4-5-1? Never. It was always 4-3-3 for me as a player and as manager, just like [Frank] Rijkaard at Barcelona. With 4-3-3, it's much easier to make combinations going forward. With only one forward, who is he going to pass to? Who is he going to make combinations with? Football is about having the best offensive play possible. I always like to play offensive football and nobody will convince me otherwise.”

Johan Cruyff (1947–2016) Dutch association football player

In an interview with Lawrence Donegan of The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/football/2005/oct/01/sport.comment6 (1 October 2005).

“He is potentially brilliant, and he is going to be exciting, but potential is nothing unless you can produce it. I would think he's way, way, way, miles away from international World Cup football.”

Theo Walcott (1989) English association football player

Bobby Robson, former manager of England, 2006 ( Source http://www.cnn.com/2006/SPORT/football/05/08/england.gamble/index.html) About

World, Way, Thinking

“That was top football. It was all one touch, the ball was perfect into the player they were passing to and the first time finish with his right foot was great. Our philosophy is to play football like that and get the ball down and play fast one or two touch football.”

Aaron Ramsey (1990) Welsh association football player

(Published 20 October 2013 on the Arsenal Website http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/ramsey-it-was-breathtaking-at-times) Ramsey (EPL Player of the Month in September 2013) praising teammate Jack Wilshere's sublime 18th minute opener in a breathtaking 4-1 win over Norwich City at the Emirates Stadium. Newcomer Mesut Özil scored a brace while a wonderful individual effort from Rambo himself, coming on as a 38th minute substitute for the concussed Mathieu Flamini, saw the Gunners return to the top of the Premier League in October 2013

Time, Perfection

“I realised fairly early that the 'wisdom of the ages' - whether from 3000 years ago or yesterday - often was simply and perfectly adaptable to the context of the football arena, and immensely valuable. From my regular morning habit of reading, I would write down any wise, pragmatic and smart quotes and ideas that struck me, and that I felt could be of use in coaching.”

Jack Gibson (1929–2008) Australian rugby league player and coach

On how he displayed the ability to deliver a one-liner or quote that always perfectly summed up a situation.

Wisdom, Age, Quotes, Idea

“We're facing the greatest challenge there is in football: to play against an Italian team that only needs a draw.”

Jürgen Klopp (1967) German association football player and manager

Klopp before second leg clash against Juventus in the Champions League.

Drawing

“I realized it might be possible to do such a thing, run for money, trot for wages on piece work at a bob a puff rising bit by bit to a guinea a gasp and retiring through old age at thirty-two because of lace-curtain lungs, a football heart, and legs like varicose beanstalks.”

Alan Sillitoe (1928–2010) British writer

"The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner", from New and Collected Stories (1958; repr. London: Robson, 2003), p. 24.

Money, Age, Heart

“I was brought up knowing you can't do anything truly by yourself. It's God blessing you in some way, shape or form. I have a religious family, and that's just how I was raised. Being a running back, it's also very obvious to me. Any running back that's ever played football, all of the success comes from the people up front. There's no way a running back can be good if nobody is blocking for him.”

Javon Ringer (1987) All-American college football player, professional football player, running back

Quoted here http://www.ncaa.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/092108acj.html

God, People, Family, Way

“In chess or in football, the tactic that proves most effective is soon the one that people learn easily to block. Every innovation in attack is soon countered by another in defence.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 3

People, Learning

“I was playing drums, and I had broken my wrist very bad playing football, and the bass player in the band… he wanted to split. So I just went to the bass; I went from Drums over to Bass. That was it. I was playing the bass within a week.”

Jaco Pastorius (1951–1987) Musician, producer, educator

On how he switched from drums to bass
Modern Electric Bass, Jaco Pastorius (1985)

“Football is the most important thing in my life, but I do have a life outside football and this is one part. The TV, the music, the fashion - it all goes to make up Rio Ferdinand.”

Rio Ferdinand (1978) English association football player

Rio Ferdinand on his TV Show, "Rio's World Cup Wind Ups" http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article670046.ece

Life, Music, Fashion, Parting

“Our autopilot was taking us into a very large crater, about the size of a big football stadium with steep slopes on the crater covered with very large rocks about the size of automobiles that was not the kind of place that I wanted to try to make the first landing.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

60 Minutes interview (2005)

“Nile Kinnck was born in 1902. Kinnick played basketball and football it high school. He moved on to play for the iowa hawkeyes and is still the only one from Iowa to win the Heisman. While playing for Iowa he broke many records he also dropped kicked for the team. It is my belief that the essential thing to be gained from a college education is to learn to think, to think for yourself; to develop an active, alert, inquiring mind…In reality you have to educate yourself. College only presents the opportunity.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to his parents (January 16, 1939)

Education, School, Thinking, Reality

“Today, the Panzer-like Bush machine controls all three branches of our federal government, the first time that has happened since Calvin Coolidge was in the White House. And that makes it just about impossible to mount any kind of Congressional investigation of a firmly-entrenched president like George Bush. The time has come to get deeply into football. It is the only thing we have left that ain't fixed.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Hey Rube

"The pain of losing" Hey Rube, HST's ESPN column (9 November 2004) http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=thompson/041109 2000s

Time, Housing

“My mom said 'you are either going to be in jail, or be killed'. So I decided to do something different because I didn't want to be in one of those positions, so I kind of focused on football and took off from there.”

Vince Young (1983) American college football player, professional football player, quarterback

On the "negative things" that were going on when he was growing up.

Moms

“Watching George Romney run for the presidency was like watching a duck try to make love to a football.”

Jim Rhodes

http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/06/24/privilege_tragedy_and_a_young_leader/?page=10

Love, Making love

“Ronaldinho is a special player, but Thierry Henry is probably technically the most gifted footballer ever to play the beautiful game.”

Thierry Henry (1977) French association football player

Zinedine Zidane http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jan/16/thierry-henry-sky-sports-pundit-playaer About

Beauty, Game

“Every trainer talks about movement, about running a lot. I say don't run so much. Football is a game you play with your brain. You have to be in the right place at the right moment, not too early, not too late.”

Johan Cruyff (1947–2016) Dutch association football player

reported in David Winner (2012). Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football.

Game

“I once admitted—to my shame—
That football was a brutal game.
Because She hates it.”

Alfred Cochrane (1865–1948) English cricketer

To Anthea, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Hate, Game

“People that are uptight about the kiss on the magazine are the same people that are gonna be watching macho football players in tight pants wrestle around and slap each other on the butt and think it's the all russian macho thing to do.”

Flea (musician) (1962) American musician

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnDGPVEo5q0&feature=related

People, Kiss, Thinking

“People who are rich want to be richer, but what's the difference? You can't take it with you. The toys get different, that's all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It's all relative.”

Martina Navrátilová (1956) American-Czech tennis player

Martina (Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), p. 210.

People, Guy

“One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

Man: The Dwelling Place of God (1992)

Life, Men, Personality, Dead

“It is not my sport. I don’t like winning with 80% [possession]. Sorry that is not enough for me. Fighting football, not serenity football, that is what I like. What we call in German ‘English’ — rainy day, heavy pitch, 5-5, everybody is dirty in the face and goes home and cannot play for weeks after.”

Jürgen Klopp (1967) German association football player and manager

On Barcelona playing style

Home, Sport, Fight

“If the NFL is going to make us pick between the NFL and a love of country, those of us who love football are going to pick our country over that game, To think that we have men who take to the field and take a knee when we play the national anthem I think is disappointing. Frankly, I think it's disgusting, When you kneel in front of the flag, it's disrespect to the men and women who served — those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, you could have an issue with America, but you don't kneel in front of the flag that represents so many great things”

Sean Duffy

Sean Duffy: 'I love American football, but I love America more' http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sean-duffy-i-love-american-football-but-i-love-america-more/article/2635691 (September 26, 2017)

Love, Women, Men, Disappointment