I would say I'm more traditional than I am superstitious. I don't, for example, have to do things ritually before the game in order to feel comfortable going to the game. But I don't think I'm naturally a football player. I don't have that grit and t...
Rather than opera, football is more like ballet or a chess game. You can really see it in a team like Arsenal, especially when Dennis Bergkamp was playing. He seemed to be able to read the game like a chessboard and knew where a player would be sever...
And when I go around and talk to schools, what I tell the kids are, first of all, you have to accept each other's differences. Some of you are going to be a crappy football player, some of you are going to be a great mathematician. Whatever it is, ac...
When you spend a lot of money on one player, you want him to prove himself, but the way football works, one day you can be good, the next you can be bad, and the next after that, you can be very bad. I have come to Manchester City to work very hard a...
I realised I'd been spoiled at Liverpool. We were used to winning. In Italy I grew up as a person. I didn't enjoy the football, mind. It was very defensive, but I became a better player because of the work I had to do around the box. Off the pitch, I...
I was a football player at college and dislocated my thumb. I was out for a bit and passed the theatre and saw some lovely drama students walking into an audition for 'Much Ado About Nothing' and thought: 'That's what I'll do when I recover.' I joine...
You don't hear a film director saying 'Money mustn't go out of the industry' to actors. You don't hear a concert promoter saying 'We must make sure that money doesn't go out of our industry' to Elton John. Some people in football seem to think, 'Neve...
There will soon be streams of data coming from all manner of products - appliances, clothing, sporting goods, you name it. Wouldn't you rather live in a world where you can export the data from your son's football helmet to a new app that monitors fo...
At the high school level, the coaches get these kids in revenue-driven sports and take them away from baseball. There's so much pressure on these kids to even play spring football. We need to get the African-American players back in the game, which I...
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...
I play a lot of football, watch a lot of football, and think about football.
There are two types of football - there's physical football and football talent.
If you were ever to interview me after a football game or at a football game or around me during football season is totally different than when you catch me away from football.
Many people agree with me that many things are not clear in football these days and it is not something people who watch football deserve. The situation will be the same while football is run by people who do not understand football.
Good people hire people better than themselves. So A players hire A+ players. But others hire below their skills to make themselves look good. So B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc.
I didn't realise how my life was changing. When I was 17, 18, 20, I didn't realise how big football was and everything around football. How many people live for football and love football. I was a professional, but I was a supporter.
When it's football season, I'm all football.
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...
More and more these days what I find myself doing in my stories is making a representation of goodness and a representation of evil and then having those two run at each other full-speed, like a couple of PeeWee football players, to see what happens....
It's something you dream about as a kid. Like when you play all those NCAA video games as a kid and you create your own player and win the Heisman with a bunch of crazy numbers. It's the biggest, most prestigious award in college football, so it'd de...
I take football as an avenue to different opportunities. Football is not using me; I'm using football.
