100 Quotes About Football

The StadiumHave you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Stand in the middle of the field and listen. There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium. There is nothing less mute than stands bereft of spectators. At Wembley, shouts from the 1966 World Cup, which England won, still resound, and if you listen very closely you can hear groans from 1953 when England fell to the Hungarians. Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium sighs with nostalgia for the glory days of Uruguayan soccer. Maracanã is still crying over Brazil’s 1950 World Cup defeat. At Bombonera in Buenos Aires, drums boom from half a century ago. From the depths of Azteca Stadium, you can hear the ceremonial chants of the ancient Mexican ball game. The concrete terraces of Camp Nou in Barcelona speak Catalan, and the stands of San Mamés in Bilbao talk in Basque. In Milan, the ghosts of Giuseppe Meazza scores goals that shake the stadium bearing his name. The final match of the 1974 World Cup, won by Germany, is played day after day and night after night at Munich’s Olympic Stadium. King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia has marble and gold boxes and carpeted stands, but it has no memory or much of anything to say. . Eduardo Galeano

The ball laughs, radiant, in the air. He brings her down, puts her to sleep, showers her with compliments, dances with her, and seeing such things never before seen his admirers pity their unborn grandchildren who will never see them. Eduardo Galeano

And one fine day the goddess of the wind kisses the foot of man, that mistreated, scorned foot, and from that kiss the soccer idol is born. He is born in a straw crib in a tin-roofed shack and he enters the world clinging to a ball. Eduardo Galeano

I crawled back to bed, knowing I was done for. Hours later, the phone in our room started ringing. It was George. He was not happy." Room 312. Now! " he shouted. Bouldy got up. I tried to pull myself together, splashing my face with water and hauling on my shorts and flip flops. It was a lovely day outside, the sun was scorching hot and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but it might as well have been a pissing wet morning in St Albans for all I cared. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach as we made the Walk of Death to Room 312, which I knew was Paul and Gus's room. When we walked in, I thought I'd arrived in downtown Baghdad. Water dripped from the ceiling. The board games were in pieces and all the plastic parts were scattered over the floor. The balcony window was wide open and I could see a bed upended by the pool outside. . Paul Merson

We want different things. Men want to have sex with a woman. Then they want to have sex with another woman. And then another. Then they want to eat cornflakes and sleep for a while, and then they want to have sex with another woman, and another, until they die. Women, ’ and I thought I’d better pick my words carefully when describing a gender I didn’t belong to, ‘want a relationship. They may not get it, or they may sleep with a lot of men before they do get it, but ultimately that’s what they want. That’s the goal. Men do not have goals. Natural ones. So they invent them, and put them at either end of a football pitch. And then they invent football. Or they pick fights, or try and get rich, or start wars, or come up with any number of daft bloody things to make up for the fact that they have no real goals.’‘ Bollocks, ’ said Ronnie.‘That, of course, is the other main difference. . Hugh Laurie

As you travel around medieval England you will come across a sport described by some contemporaries as 'abominable ... more common, undignified and worthless than any other game, rarely ending but with some loss, accident or disadvantage to the players themselves'. This is football. Ian Mortimer

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

The eccentric passion of Shankly was underlined for me by my England team-mate Roger Hunt's version of the classic tale of the Liverpool manager's pre-game talk before playing Manchester United. The story has probably been told a thousand times in and out of football, and each time you hear it there are different details, but when Roger told it the occasion was still fresh in his mind and I've always believed it to be the definitive account. It was later on the same day, as Roger and I travelled together to report for England duty, after we had played our bruising match at Anfield. Ian St John had scored the winner, then squared up to Denis Law, with Nobby finally sealing the mood of the afternoon by giving the Kop the 'V' sign. After settling down in our railway carriage, Roger said, 'You may have lost today, but you would have been pleased with yourself before the game. Shanks mentioned you in the team talk. When he says anything positive about the opposition, normally he never singles out players.' According to Roger, Shankly burst into the dressing room in his usual aggressive style and said, 'We're playing Manchester United this afternoon, and really it's an insult that we have to let them on to our field because we are superior to them in every department, but they are in the league so I suppose we have to play them. In goal Dunne is hopeless- he never knows where he is going. At right back Brennan is a straw- any wind will blow him over. Foulkes the centre half kicks the ball anywhere. On the left Tony Dunne is fast but he only has one foot. Crerand couldn't beat a tortoise. It's true David Herd has got a fantastic shot, but if Ronnie Yeats can point him in the right direction he's likely to score for us. So there you are, Manchester United, useless..' Apparently it was at this point the Liverpool winger Ian Callaghan, who was never known to whisper a single word on such occasions, asked, 'What about Best, Law and Charlton, boss?' Shankly paused, narrowed his eyes, and said, 'What are you saying to me, Callaghan? I hope you're not saying we cannot play three men. Bobby Charlton

My default button was set to self-destruct. It had been since birth. Mercy Celeste

I love football. I love the aesthetics of football. I love the athleticism of football. I love the movement of the players, the antics of the coaches. I love the dynamism of the fans. I love their passion for their badge and the colour of their team and their country. I love the noise and the buzz and the electricity in the stadium. I love the songs. I love the way the ball moves and then it flows and the way a teams fortune rises and falls through a game and through a season. But what I love about football is that it brings people together across religious divides, geographic divides, political divides. I love the fact that for ninety minutes in a rectangular piece of grass, people can forget hopefully, whatever might be going on in their life, and rejoice in this communal celebration of humanity. The biggest diverse, invasive or pervasive culture that human kinds knows is football and I love the fact that at the altar of football human kind can come worship and celebrate. Andy Harper

Okay then, we’re set” he thought. “Come and get it”. The enemy, his enemy, were walking into the classic football ambush and they didn’t have a fucking clue. Dougie Brimson

Critics of soccer contend that the game inherently culminates in death and destruction. They argue that the game gives life to tribal identities which should be disappearing in a world where a European Union and globalization are happily shredding such ancient sentiments. Another similar widely spread thesis that holds that the root cause of violence can be found in the pace of the game itself. Because goals come so irregularly, fans spend far too much time sublimating their emotions, anticipating but never releasing. When those emotions swell and become uncontainable, the fans erupt into dark, Dionysian fits of ecstatic violence. Franklin Foer

There's a strange uniformity in the vocabulary European soccer fans use to hate black people. The same primate insults get hurled. Although they've gotten better over time, the English and Italians developed the tradition of making ape noises when black players touched the ball. The Poles toss bananas on the field. This consistency owes nothing to television, which rarely shows these finer points of fan behavior. Nor are these insults considered polite to discuss in public. This trope has simply become a continent-wide folk tradition, transmitted via the stadium, from fan to fan, from father to son. . Franklin Foer

In his mind progress was always to be measured in inches, especially when you didn’t have yards or even feet of success to show off. David Baldacci

Billy tries to imagine the vast systems that support these athletes. They are among the best-cared for creatures in the history of the planet, beneficiaries of the best nutrition, the latest technologies, the finest medical care, they live at the very pinnacle of American innovation and abundance, which inspires an extraordinary thought - send them to fight the war! Send them just as they are this moment, well rested, suited up, psyched for brutal combat, send the entire NFL! Attack with all our bears and raiders, our ferocious redskins, our jets, eagles, falcons, chiefs, patriots, cowboys - how could a bunch of skinny hajjis in man-skits and sandals stand a chance against these all- Americans? Resistance is futile, oh Arab foes. Surrender now and save yourself a world of hurt, for our mighty football players cannot be stopped, they are so huge, so strong, so fearsomely ripped that mere bombs and bullets bounce off their bones of steel. Submit, lest our awesome NFL show you straight to the flaming gates of hell!. Ben Fountain

If he could do one thing, he could run. He had spent his life running, secrets spitting at his back. Brenda Sutton Rose

Football is the poetry of a motion. Pubudu Lasal Dissanayake

There definitely needs to be water on the sidelines for these players, but I also had some Gatorade just in case they were allergic to the water or vice versa. John Madden

If you're ashamed to stand by your colours, you better seek for another flag. Mokhtar Dahari

The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football. Terry Pratchett

Wouldn't you like to make sure all those millions you give to Uncle Sam went to schools and hospitals instead of nuclear warheads?' As a matter of fact, he would. Playgrounds for big kids, preschool programs to little ones, and mandatory LASIK surgery for NFL refs. Susan Elizabeth Phillips

If teams keep playing us this way, it's going to be like this Peyton Manning

If you have not seen it, FOOTBALL is a game in which men shove one another back and forth for no reason. They do not choose how, when, or whom they shove. All that has been decided for them in advance. All they need to do is follow the orders given to them before the game, showing them where to run and how to violently deploy the meat of their bodies against the meat that is running at them. They are doing this in order to please one angry old man on the sidelines. This old man is called the "coach" or "yelling surrogate dad who will never be happy. John Hodgman

In the sweep of its appeal, its ability to touch every corner of humanity, football is the only game that needed to be invented. Bobby Charlton

Life is full of all sorts of setbacks and twists and turns and disappointments. The character of this team will be how well you will come back from this letdown, this defeat. You could still be a great team and you can still accomplish great things as football players but it's going to take a real resolve to do it." -Coach Ladouceur Neil Hayes

Victories are a byproduct of a larger vision. It begins with a question: How much do we owe one another? Each coach's and player's individual answer is one of the building blocks of The Streak. De La Salle separates itself from the competition because everyone from the head coach to the least accomplished player on the roster is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to be their absolute best. Neil Hayes

I've often told people that the greatness of this football program will emerge when The Streak ends. I hope you will all live up to that. It's all numbers. It's nothing. It's not what we're about. It's not what this school represents." -Coach Frank Allocco Neil Hayes

You all know and lived the 'secrets' to De La Salle's success-love, brotherhood, sacrifice, discipline, heart, courage, passion, honesty. These are not just 'catch words' we throw around to impress others or justify our existence. We know what these mean because we created it and lived it. Understand that with that knowledge there is no turning back for us-ignorance is not an option. It is your future duty, no matter where you end up, to create the environment you have created here by bringing your best selves to the table. Neil Hayes

The process begins during the off-season program, when players spend countless hours together and become heavily invested in the season before it even starts. It continues during these weekly meetings, when players stand and deliver heartfelt testimonials. You can't play for Ladouceur unless you're willing to stand in front of your teammates and bare your soul. You can't play unless you're willing to cry. . Neil Hayes

He wants to play major college football at a university far away, where nobody will know about his tragic family history. Then he wants to play in the NFL.Every catch brings him closer to that reality. That's how he thinks of it, anyway. Every time he runs downfield, sees the ball in the air, and hears the defensive back laboring to catch up, whenever he feels that ball fall out of the sky and into his waiting hands, he inches closer to his goals. . Neil Hayes

Love of sports will always break your heart, but in doing so, it reminds us we have one. Stuart Stevens

He once told me, Instead of scoring thirty goals a season, why don't you score twenty-five and help someone else to score fifteen? That way the team's ten goals better off. David Peace

A man with new ideas is a madman, until his ideas triumph. Marcelo Bielsa

Wisdom of the Ages "Assault and Battery" Weather forecast for the St. Louis Rams next Sunday in Seattle. Matthew D. Heines

Owen Owens Field embodies the name of the team that calls it home. It's Spartan to the core. Neil Hayes

The recruiter didn't bother to introduce himself when Alumbaugh extended his hand. Instead, he turned to Aliotti and said: "He's not six-foot-one." Nice to meet you, too, Alumbaugh thought. Neil Hayes

If we had played Poly a hundred more times that year we wouldn't have beaten them again. On that night we found a way. It was an unbelievable thing. It was a marvelous, miraculous win." -Coach Frank Allocco Neil Hayes

Understatement has become part of the tradition. A proposal to build a history room to house the football team's memorabilia was immediately shelved when many former players complained. What makes this program so special is what you carry in your heart, they argued, not what you hang on the wall. Neil Hayes

De La Salle hung on for the 28-21 victory. Afterward, Ladouceur stood before his exhausted team. It was by far the biggest victory in school history at the time, but the coach noticed that several of his players wore masks of disappointment. "It's OK to feel disappointed if you didn't play your absolute best, " he told them. "That's what we're all about. Neil Hayes

He hadn't developed into the accomplished running quarterback many had predicted he would become over the course of the season. But he had come to personify this team. He was raw and untested when the season began, but he played his two best games in the two biggest games on the schedule. He wasn't the player anybody expected him to be, but he got the job done-at times spectacularly. Neil Hayes

She's a Texan, born and raised. Football is in our blood. Simone Elkeles

But how a game plan came to be, what a finished plan looked like, I had no idea. I’d heard that all copies were shredded as soon as the game was over. Nicholas Dawidoff

I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal, and that's not pulling the trigger. Mia Hamm

If I'd been born ugly, you'd never have heard of Pelé. George Best

Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver. Jonathan Sacks

Ben Schwartzwalder was a decent guy, but he was from another era. He was like a Marine, with a real army attitude. He thought there was only one way to play football, and that was the rough way. Jim Brown

Arsenal have won that advantage, nobody gave it to them. By playing fantastic football and by winning matches and by winning trophies, they won that respect that the opponent has for them. Jose Mourinho

Deacon Jones has been the most inspirational person in my football career. Jack Youngblood

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. Thierry Henry

You're not going to see my sense of humor on the football field. That's not a place for me to joke around. Tom Brady

I may be a successful football player, but I feel like such a failure. Brett Favre

Football is unconditional love. Tom Brady

When Brian told me he grew up in New Mexico, I told him I thought it is cool that people from other countries play football. He corrected me on my geography and agreed to sit down with me anyway. Terry Bradshaw

For many sports fans, the onset of fall only means one thing: It's football season! Marcus Samuelsson

I'm a football fan, a sports fan, a fan of competition. Matthew McConaughey

I'm a big sports fan. Football. Cricket. Danny Boyle

Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors. Frank Gifford

Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win. Gary Lineker

I like sports. I'm a big football fan. When I was a kid, I was a... I don't even know how to describe it... I was an obsessed Brooklyn Dodgers fan. And I think when they left Brooklyn, which was simultaneous with me starting college, everything changed, and I haven't had the same passion for sports. Brian Dennehy

Football is violence and cold weather and sex and college rye. Roger Kahn

It is hard to compete with other sports. Badminton is a sport which, when compared with football and tennis, still needs promotion. Lin Dan

I had pro offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, who were pretty hard up for linemen in those days. If I had gone into professional football the name Jerry Ford might have been a household word today. Gerald R. Ford

The importance that our society attaches to sport is incredible. After all, is football a game or a religion? The people of this country have allowed sports to get completely out of hand. Howard Cosell

American sports are quite masculine. And football - although it's still played by men all over the world - football compared to American football is quite feminine in its artistry. And there's no padding. It's America's loss, though. Noel Gallagher

When I was a kid, I did many sports. Judo, like my dad, but also volleyball, handball, and gymnastics. We never played much football. Robert Lewandowski

My becoming an actor wasn't planned. My interest always lied in sports such as football, martial arts, gymnastics and dance. Tiger Shroff

If your man is a sports enthusiast, you may have to resign yourself to his spouting off in a monotone on a prize fight, football game or pennant race. Marilyn Monroe

February is always a bad month for TV sports. Football is gone, basketball is plodding along in the annual midseason doldrums, and baseball is not even mentioned. Hunter S. Thompson

I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they'd be, what position they'd play and so on. Lou Holtz

I'm a black Catholic raised in Decatur, Georgia, which was very gang-infested. Then, I went to an all-white private high school and excelled in sports and wrote poetry, then played football at the University of Georgia, minoring in drama. Omari Hardwick

I like a lot of sports. Especially football - it's my favourite sport. My uncle played football in Barcelona for nine years and played for Spain in three World Cups. Rafael Nadal

I always played sports when I was young. I played football and baseball for eight years. I loved football. Taylor Lautner

Thank you... fantasy football draft, for letting me know that even in my fantasies, I am bad at sports. Jimmy Fallon

I like both athletic girls and girly girls. It depends on their personality. I like girls who can go out and play sports with me and throw the football around, but you don't want a girl who's too much tougher than you. I like brainy girls who can respond to what I'm saying. Josh Hutcherson

It takes a tremendous amount of skill to be a football player. And some of these guys have enough skills to do other sports. Soccer could be one. Basketball could be another. Things where you need incredible hand-eye coordination are always options. I think a football player would be able to adapt to a lot of sports. Troy Polamalu

Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it's so incredible, it's unbelievable. Tom Landry

My dad was a sports writer when I was younger and then he became just a general columnist. But I grew up with him literally getting into brawls with football coaches. Amy Klobuchar

Baseball happens to be a game of cumulative tension but football, basketball and hockey are played with hand grenades and machine guns. John Leonard

While American football is very structured and linear and static - where everyone lines up, and there's a burst, and it happens - soccer is like the cosmos. It's like constellations. It's bodies moving in space. It's a very spherical game. Gabriel Luna

When I got out of coaching, I had taught a class at the University of California, an extension class on football for fans. I was looking for tools. I was showing them films. I was going to write a textbook. Trip Hawkins came to me about making it a game for computers. John Madden

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

Football taught me how hard you had to work to achieve something. Kenny Chesney

My mum lives in Boston; she's famous for teaching wushu and t'ai chi. So from when I was young, my mum and aunt were like: 'You're training; you're not playing baseball or football.' Training every day was normal. Later, when I was almost a teenager, Bruce Lee became my idol. Donnie Yen

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted. Ving Rhames

Believe it or not, one teacher used to call me a giant spastic for not being able to play football. Peter Capaldi

You know, a football coach is nothing more than a teacher. You teach them the same subject, and you have a group of new guys every year. Darrell Royal

I have always been an outstanding football player, I have always had uncanny abilities, great arm strength, an immense ability to play the game from a quarterback standpoint. The problem was that I wasn't given the liberty to do certain things when I was young. Michael Vick

Nixon was a bad loser. He hated losing worse than death, and that is why I enjoyed him. We were both football fans, both addicts; and on some days, nothing else mattered. Hunter S. Thompson

My parents were great at making sure I got out of bed when I needed to play football on a Sunday morning and that I was ready after school to go to training on a Tuesday and Thursday. But it was never forced upon me or rammed down my throat. If it had been, I could have ended up hating sport. Greg Rutherford

It's very exciting... what DeAndre brings to the game is truly special. To have the opportunity to play with a football player like that, that's what gets a quarterback out of bed in the morning. Brock Osweiler

I used to go play football matches in the morning, and I'd go straight from me football game to a dance competition. Tristan MacManus

Football is a game about feelings and intelligence. Jose Mourinho

What happens is once you start to understand football, you realise that it's not just about the physical side of the game and chasing after a ball. It's a strategic sport which requires a lot of intelligence. It's a very mental game. Shakira

We've got some talented people in my family in regards to football, and we do it the right way. Clay Matthews III