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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.
Sep 29, 2025
The most important thing for a forward is speed of thought. Top players read the game.
If a team intimidate you physically and you let them, they've won.
You don't have to have been a horse to be a jockey.
The rules of soccer are very simple: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn't move, kick it until it does.
Winning doesn't really matter as long as you win
We didn't underestimate them. They were just a lot better than we thought.
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.
Pele called me the greatest footballer in the world. That is the ultimate salute to my life.
The goal was scored a little bit by the hand of God, another bit by the head of Maradona.
The person that said winning isn't everything, never won anything.
Other countries have their history. Uruguay has its football.
I was surprised, but I always say nothing surprises me in football.
In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.
In his life, a man can change wives, political parties or religions but he cannot change his favourite soccer team.
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.
Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence.
Football's a difficult business and aren't they prima donnas. But it's a wonderful game.
Football's not just about scoring goals - it's about winning.
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.
International football is the continuation of war by other means.
When I go to the press conference before the game, in my mind the game has already started...
If this can be termed the century of the common man, then soccer, of all sports, is surely his game.... In a world haunted by the hydrogen and napalm bomb, the football field is a place where sanity and hope are still left unmolested.
Every single day I wake up and commit to myself to becoming a better player.
Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple.
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
Italians can't win the game against you, but you can lose the game against the Italians.
Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but is hardly suitable for delicate boys.
I wouldn't be bothered if we lost every game, as long as we won the league.
I always used to put my right boot on first, and then obviously my right sock.
In football, the worst blindness is only seeing the ball.
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.
The team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.
A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.
I'm here to score a lot of goals. It's my specialty, 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.
Football is the ballet of the masses.
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.
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.
Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.
It is more difficult to stay on top than to get there.
All good athletes make mistakes; the great ones learn to make that mistake only once.
I am building a fire, and everyday I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match.
The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.
You're never a loser until you quit trying.
What to do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.
It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up.
Most of us are in this more than just for playing soccer. We're in it for the bigger goal - to move it along for the next generation.
Set your goals high, and don't stop till you get there.
I don't believe skill was, or ever will be, the result of coaches. It is a result of a love affair between the child and the ball.
Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.