Inspiring

The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when no one else is watching.
-Anson Dorrance-

Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.
-Pele-

All good athletes make mistakes; the great ones learn to make that mistake only once.
-Raul Lopez-

Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.
-Mia Hamm-

Every disadvantage has got it's advantage.
-Johan Cruijff-

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
-Roy Keane-

The person that said winning isn't everything, never won anything.
-Mia Hamm-

The goalkeeper is the jewel in the crown and getting at him should be almost impossible. It's the biggest sin in football to make him do any work.
-George Graham-

I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.
-Mia Hamm-

The rules of soccer are very simple, basically it is this: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn't move, kick it until it does.
-Phil Woosnam-

Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.
-Bill Shankly-
English soccer manager.

Football's a difficult business and aren't they prima donnas. But it's a wonderful game.
-Queen Elizabeth II-
To Premier League Chairman David Richards, November 2006.

Every time I went away I was deceiving my mum. I'd tell her I was going to school but I'd be out on the street playing football. I always had a ball on my feet.
-Ronaldo-
Brazilian soccer player.

If a team wants to intimidate you physically and you let them, they've won.
-Mia Hamm-
American World Cup Soccer champion.

I'm here to score a lot of goals. It's my speciality, that's what I've been brought here to do, and I want to score plenty ; like I did with Barcelona. And here, there's every reason to think I can do it.
-Ronaldo-
Brazilian soccer player.

The rules of soccer are very simple, basically it is this: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn't move, kick it until it does.
-Phil Woosnam-
Welsh soccer player and manager.

To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink.
-J. B. Priestley-
The Good Companions.

In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.
Jean Paul Sartre
-French philosopher.-

Every single day I wake up and commit to myself to becoming a better player.
-Mia Hamm-
American female soccer player.

I fell in love with football as I would later fall in love with women: suddenly, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain it would bring.
-Nick Hornby-
Opening sentence from English writer's book Fever Pitch.

The vision of a champion is someone bent over, drenched in sweat, to a point of exhaustion, when no one else is watching.
-Anson Dorrance-
American women's soccer coach.

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.
-George Orwell-
English writer.

Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.
-Pele-
Brazilian soccer player, considered possibly world's greatest.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
-Roy Keane-
Irish soccer player and English football club manager.

I'm sure sex wouldn't be so rewarding as this World Cup. It's not that sex isn't good but the World Cup is every four years and sex is not.
-Ronaldo-
Brazilian soccer player, after winning 2002 World Cup.

Pele called me the greatest footballer in the world. That is the ultimate salute to my life.
-George Best-
Northern Ireland soccer player, from his autobiography, The Good, The Bad and the Bubbly.

The goal was scored a little bit by the hand of God, another bit by the head of Maradona.
-Maradona-
Argentinian soccer player, on goal against England in 1986 World Cup.

Football is all very well a good game for rough girls, but not for delicate boys.
-Oscar Wilde-
Irish writer.

I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.
-Mia Hamm
American female soccer player.

Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen; soccer is a gentlemen's game played by beasts; football is a beastly game played by beasts.
-Henry Blaha-

The goalkeeper is the jewel in the crown and getting at him should be almost impossible. It's the biggest sin in football to make him do any work.
-George Graham-
Scottish soccer player and manager.

Italians can't win the game against you, but you can lose the game against the Italians.
-Johan Cryuff-
Dutch soccer player.

Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence.
-Bobby Charlton-
English soccer player and 1966 World Cup winner.

Whoever invented football should be worshipped as a God.
-Hugo Sanchez-
Mexican soccer player and coach.

Five days shalt thou labour, as the Bible says. The seventh day is the Lord thy God's. The sixth day is for football.
-Anthony Burgess-
English writer.

In Latin America the border between soccer and politics is vague. There is a long list of governments that have fallen or been overthrown after the defeat of the national team.
-Luis Suarez-
Mexican journalist, quoted in The Soccer War by Ryszard Kapuscinski (1969).

At a football club, there's a holy trinity - the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are only there to sign the checks.
-Bill Shankly-
English soccer manager.

If you are first you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.
-Bill Shankly-
English soccer manager.

The person that said winning isn't everything, never won anything.
-Mia Hamm-
American female soccer player.

Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.
-Mia Hamm-
American female soccer player.

When I go to the press conference before the game, in my mind the game has already started.
-Jose Mourinho-
Portuguese soccer manager.

We lost because we didn't win.
-Ronaldo-
Brazilian soccer player.

You can have the top stars to bring the attention, you can have the best stadium, you can have the best facilities, you can have the most beautiful project in terms of marketing and all this kind of thing. But if you don't win... All the work these people are doing is forgotten.
-Jose Mourinho-
Portuguese soccer manager.