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.
As the new season dawns, new stars will rise, new teams will captivate, new stadiums will rock, new challenges will emerge, new battles will be fought. In the name of glory, in the name of honor, in the name of football, the game we love, the game we live for.
FIFA - 14
1My opinion is that individual awards are unnecessary in a team sport. No single player would have won anything on their own.
Toni Kroos - Oktober 2023
In the end, for me, football is still a game. Even if you are a professional, you need to have fun when you are on the field.
Football is about friendship aswell, it's not about sports only, it's not about business.
Aleksander Čeferin (as UEFA President) - October 2021
The most difficult thing in football is to score a goal.
Running is for animals. You need a brain and a ball for football.
If the teams with the best players always won, football would be boring.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who is scoring and who is not scoring. It's about winning games.
Playing football for three years is a long time - playing at Real Madrid for three years is even longer.
Toni Kroos - May 2020
Football is the most important of the less important things in the world.
Usually, the most intelligent player is a midfielder.
In football, you know anything can happen and that everything can change from minute to minute.
If you have control of the midfield, you have control of the game, and you have more chances to win.
In 90 minutes, anything can happen.
It's football. Sometimes it's unfair.
Nothing is impossible in football, and that is our idea, our philosophy.
Dominating the midfield is the most important thing in modern football.
Nobody expects a footballer to have any kind of an IQ, which is a bit of an unfair stereotype.
When you arrive in England for football it's a paradise.
The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public.
In England, footballers are respected more, the game is more noble, there's less cheating. Every Spaniard who goes loves it - and comes back a better player. If I had ever left, it would have been to England.
In football, the worst things are excuses. Excuses mean you cannot grow or move forward.
The most difficult thing in football is to score a goal.
I love football, football is my life.
It's important for the team not to be relying on one player.
I see myself as the best footballer in the world. If you don't believe you are the best, then you will never achieve all that you are capable of.
Football is a team sport and not an individual sport. We win as a team, and every individual is better if we are part of the team.
Contracts are not a holy relic in football. You can like this attitude or not, but it's the truth. Sometimes you have to think about if it is meaningful to try out a new impulse.
I am constantly being asked about individuals. The only way to win is as a team. Football is not about one or two or three star players.
Soccer is a magical game.
My wish is that soccer in the U.S. become on the same level like the Premier League, Spanish league, or the Bundesliga.
I spent more time in Spane than in Turkey - does that make me a German-Turkish Spaniard or a Spanisch-German Turk? Why do we always think in borders? I want to be a footballer - football is international and not about where people come from.
Mesut Özil - 22.06.2012, Interview FAZ
What ever I would do, I would be the one I am today. I chose football and I'm sorry for the other fans that are cheering for other sports, because it would be the same thing.
Zlatan Ibrahimović in Jimmy Kimmel Live! - Sendung vom 17.04.2018
An entire season changes with one kick, one bad decision, one slip. But one magic moment lives in our hearts forever. We live for these moments. We are these moments. This is more than a game. This is football.
FIFA - 15
Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.
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When Dortmund won here for the last time, 19 years ago, most of my players have still been quenched.
It was bad enough when they used to win with dour efficiency. These days, though, we have to suffer Germany frolicking to victory with a swagger in their stride and with a crafty wink to the galleries.
Daily Mirror (English newspaper) - during EUROS in June 2012
2Hey, ref, check your voicemail! I think you've missed a few calls!
Ted Mosby in How I Met Your Mother - Season 9 Episode 9
Professional soccer player, right? She goes on to ESPN and she starts b*tching, "I don't understand, how come female athletes don't make as much as male athletes?" And all of these men had to sit there and act, like they didn't know what the answer was.
Literally, I'm sitting at home, screaming at the TV, "because you don't sell any f*cking tickets! Nobody is going to women's soccer games."
Literally, I'm sitting at home, screaming at the TV, "because you don't sell any f*cking tickets! Nobody is going to women's soccer games."
It hurts when you're always doing your best for your club and then you hear that you might be going to Tottenham.
We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.
Ed Sheeran did what I haven't seen too often before: Make people smile when leaving the Schalke Arena.
Toni Kroos - July 2022
1I can't believe it, maybe he's a liar! He's so good for 17 years old, he's a fantastic player. There was one moment when he didn't get the ball from central defenders, how he shouts and demands that ball to him at 17 means a lot.
Pep Guardiola - September 2020
The choice of Qatar was a mistake and I take my responsibility because I was the FIFA president at the time. Qatar is a small country. Football and World Cups are for big countries.
Sepp Blatter - November 2022