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Al Davis is a legend and his contribution and influence on the game of football, the National Football League, and the Oakland Raiders has been profound for decades. To view his contribution and influence on a season-by-season basis does not make sense: he has dominated the industry for a lifetime. I can't tell you how he may have impacted or guided other individuals during their careers but I can speak from personal experience. He inspires me to be better every day than I was the day before.
I am delighted to be here at Arsenal and to be part of one of the great teams in English football. It's a huge satisfaction to join this great club and it’s been a dream since I was young to play in the Premier League. I was attracted by the philosophy of football and Arsène Wenger’s 'touch' at this club. I have always admired Arsenal with its great history and reputation, and I now hope to achieve great things here. I’m very proud to be a Gunner and I will give my best for all the Arsenal fans.
The combination of an out-of-control tabloid press and a readership that thrills to the destruction of the England head coach is something no other country can offer. Scolari was driven out; Steve McClaren's personal life made the front pages. Neither of them even held the job. Then there was the fake-sheikhing of Sven-Göran Eriksson. That a newspaper should so brilliantly and deliberately destabilise the national head coach in a World Cup year is something no other sporting nation would consider.
I was born with God-given gifts of very talented musical ability and exceptoinal physical coordination. I always needed prodding to practice piano, violin, cornet or French horn. I had to be pulled away from any athletic participation. Now, at 63, I look back on my athletic feats - All-American, All-Pro Quaterback, College and Pro Football Hall of Fame - and I can honestly say I would trade these all if I had been smart enough to pursue my musical career. YOUNG PEOPLE - don't make the same mistake.
College football is no more of a minor league than, say, the universities' schools of journalism, engineering or music are. We can argue at another time whether football should occupy the same space on campus as those disciplines, but for now, it does. The critical point is that a coach is less concerned with preparing athletes for the next level than he is with molding them to fit a system that helps him win games, keep his job and, eventually, move on to a position with a more prestigious program.
I think we've reached that point where we understand medically what we are doing to ourselves with these sports. In football, it's kind of hard to get the access that you want for the story and, of course, it's very long-term: the effects of the repeat concussions really don't hit until decades afterwards, whereas the traumatic injuries in extreme sports are very immediate. I realized Traumatic Brain Injury was a fascinating and important story that not had been told very much. I wanted to know more.
I was in Athens for a football match when 9/11 went down, and it was quite spectacular - we went into this bar and tried to find out what happened, and the bartender said "it's only the American and the Arabs. They're not big football nations." So the feeling was, what's it got to do with us? Why are football games being cancelled in Europe? The intelligentsia in the West feel like they have to figure out the significance of it all, whereas people have other pressing concerns, related to basic needs.
People who are following their dreams inspire me. I train at this relatively new gym in West Hollywood called Training Mate. It's owned by a former Australian football player named Luke Milton. The classes are mostly taught by other Australians that are just like Luke: fit, funny, cute, and approachable. Now they're talking about opening another location. He will open another location and be successful because he's following his dream. People like him inspire me because they make me think I can do it too.
Over analyse, paralyse, you mustn't over analyse... Do you wake up at four in the morning and wonder who should be playing left-back? Four? I would love to sleep that long. If you want a really long career you have to find a way of switching off. I do it when I'm out walking my dog, Alex Ferguson got into horses, others get into wine. Some players like going shopping, which is not my scene. A lot of them turn to golf. I tried it, didn't like it. I have to walk. If I couldn't I'd be in a padded cell by now.
Do you play football?' Brandon asks. 'No.' 'Baseball?' 'Nope.' Brandon is on a roll and won't stop until he's found the answer he's looking for. 'Tennis?' 'That would be a nada' 'Then what sport do you play?' Carlos puts down his food. Oh, no. He's got a rebellious gleam in his eye as he says, 'The horizontal tango.' ...Alex stands and says through chlenched teeth, 'Carlos let's talk. In private. Ahora.' ....Brandon turns to my dad with big, innocent eyes. 'Daddy, do you know how to do the horizontal tango?
It's all about the climate. I had a long discussion about it when I went to Scotland to see Andy Roxburgh. I worked with a Scottish youth side and had them do the same drills I would do in Italy. I realised that, between the wind, the rain and the cold, there was no way they could do it. How can you possibly teach anybody anything in those conditions? To me, it's pretty obvious and it explains why Brazilians are more technical than Europeans and, in Italy, the further south you go the more technical they are.
Malcolm Gladwell was on TV talking about wanting to have college football banned. It's interesting just because of him even bringing the topic up. Sooner or later, whether people are for or against it whether they like it or not, that is going to be a discussion that is going to come up. That's how it all starts - someone brings up the inquiry: Should we continue to let our children play Pop Warner, high school, and college football? Ten, 15, 20 years from now, who knows where that conversation is going to be.
You don't look for jobs. You don't phone up 10 clubs and say, Here I am. You are offered the job. I was in Benfica many years ago. I was leaving the training ground and I had a car after me. It went on for 10 minutes. Anyhow, he stopped and I stopped and he said, I'm from the Italian embassy. Ah yes, and what do you want? I want your phone number because Roma wants you as a manager next season. Three months later I was sitting on the bench in Roma. I don't think the rest of working society works like football.
I am very athletic, actually, and I'm good at most sports. But I was never a successful athlete, because I have a lot of trouble with authority. To be a good athlete, you have to have sort of a military attitude. You have to enjoy being coached, and that was not something I ever liked. But more than that, I don't like practice, and coaches hate anybody that doesn't like practice. If you saw me throwing a football, you'd say, "Wow, he knows how to throw a football." But put me on a field, I'm not gonna stand out.
Why do we so mindlessly abuse our planet, our only home? The answer to that lies in each of us. Therefore, we will strive to bring about understanding that we are--each one of us--responsible for more than just ourselves, our family, our football team, our country, or our own kind; that there is more to life than just these things. That each one of us must also bring the natural world back into its proper place in our lives, and realize that doing so is not some lofty ideal but a vital part of our personal survival.
[Lennie meets Joe - he works out that she was named after John Lennon] I nod. "Mom was a hippie." This is northern Northern California after all - the final frontier of freakerdom. Just in the eleventh grade we have a girl named Electricity, a guy named Magic Bus, and countless flowers: Tulip, Begonia, and Poppy - all parent-given-on-the-birth-certificate names. Tulip is a two-ton bruiser of a guy who would be the star of out football team if we were the kind of school that has optional morning meditation in the gym
I had people who were around me, people that I put a lot of trust in that sort of messed me over. So after that I said, only I can look back over my life and say I was responsible for whom I hired. I was responsible for how I managed my money. So I decided I wanted to do it myself. I understood the business of football. And because I can understand the business of football, I decided it's the best decision for me to be an agent. It made the most sense and I think a lot of players are opening their eyes to it as well.
In England everything is liberalised. Within certain boundaries and rules everybody can do what he likes. Maybe London's society has a different tempo, a different dynamic. London is fast, productive, creative but it is not England. If you want to transfer that to football, you could say: in the four big English clubs and maybe in the one or two behind them there is a top level. Everything that comes after that rather mirrors English society. It's honest, fair and hard, sometimes also fast, but not always so perfect.
After attending a banquet honoring the 1974 BYU team that won the Western AthleticConference and went to the Fiesta Bowl. It was the first of Edwards' 18 WAC champions and 21 bowl teams. That was the group of kids that totally changed the direction of my life and the direction of our football program. We started 0-3-1 and won seven or eight in a row. They were the first bowl team in school history. I hadn't really accomplished anything yet. To see all those guys reminded me where we've been. It was an emotional night.
I don't like to lose, and that isn't so much because it is just a football game, but because defeat means the failure to reach your objective. I don't want a football player who doesn't take defeat to heart, who laughs it off with the thought, "Oh, well, there's another Saturday." The trouble in American life today, in business as well as in sports, is that too many people are afraid of competition. The result is that in some circles people have come to sneer at success if it costs hard work and training and sacrifice.
Kaka beat Fletcher to the ball, and headed it past Heinze as the Argentine sought to close him down. Heinze could still have dealt with the problem, but, inexplicably, Patrice Evra came flying in like a runaway TGV. Heinze was flattened, Fletcher was so shocked that he stopped to rubber-neck, and Kaka strolled on and rolled the ball past Van der Sar. Evra's nightmare of a half continued when he crazily got himself cautioned for dissent, so removing Ferguson's one remaining first-choice defender from the away leg. Madness.
Especially in this business of football you got to get on your knees multiple times a day, just thanking God. I pray while I'm on the field because He has to be with me. One injury away from being done from playing football for the rest of my life or just that fast it can happen. So I just always got to pray for that covering. Make sure He's with me out there making plays with me. God wants to be involved in everything that you do. And I just try to involve Him. And that's what God said to do, to help build up His kingdom.
When I was in Dutch and Italian football, a lot of people looked at Manchester United, and when they were asked who was the best player, a lot of them said Paul Scholes. Much of what he did looked simple, but actually it was quite hard. Invariably he controlled the ball instantly and passed it straight on, keeping the game moving. He made inch-perfect passes across the pitch; he saw the gaps and could play the ball through them. So it didn't surprise me that so many top-class international footballers recognized his quality.
Even before 2007, this half of a small island was the richest football country on earth. In 2005-2006 the Premiership's total revenue was about £1.4bn, 40 per cent more than its nearest rival, Italy's Serie A. That was before take-off. Now foreign television channels are sending so much cash that the Premiership is expected to take in nearly £1.8bn this season. Even the team that finishes bottom of the table (Wigan might be a good bet) will get £26.8m from TV. That's more than all of Argentine or Belgian football put together.
To this day I am not convinced of having brought together with me in Germany the technically best players that could have been. But I was firmly convinced I called the ones that could create a team, and they could play with one another to the best of their possibility. In this day and age you win if you become a team. It doesn't necessarily mean that you've got to have the best football players in the country. It's possible that the best, all together, don't become a team. It's like a mosaic, you have to put all the pieces together.
I know for myself my big, long friendships they don't have the same problems any more, but they also-when you get together you often times just have a drink and watch football together. You're not really talking about everything so much the same way. You just need to be around each other, and yet you can look at each other and so much is said just between those minutiae- it's totally subtle is really what it is. I felt like that, you know, a life that's been so totally dramatic then becomes beauty in the fact that it's just so small.
Sven-Göran Eriksson, confronted with arguably Europe's weakest qualifying group, has a problem; it is the same one that afflicted Jacques Santini, the France coach at the time, before Euro 2004. Not that there are no easy matches at international level; rather, there are no hard ones. In qualifying for the 2004 European Championship finals, France faced a group not of death, but of sun-block, comprising Slovenia, Israel, Cyprus and Malta, which they duly won by ten points, averaging 3.6 goals per game. We all know what happened next.
It's not often you find yourself writing about a game that you haven't seen one kick of. But it's not often that the favourites lose 5-0 in one of their most important matches of the season. But all things considered - the difference between expectations of success and margin of victory, the fact of Strachan's debut, the injury to Chris Sutton, the joy it will bring Rangers fans, and the potential financial loss of going out of Europe completely in the first week in August - it is hard to remember the last defeat this bad for any team.
I've come to the conclusion that it's all about fear- fear that your kid won't come out on top, be a success. Forcing him into these brutal encounters will a) make a dame sure he is a success, and b) all you to see evidence of that success with the added bonus of a cheering crowd. This means that sports are supported with an almost desperate enthusiasm. The football team gets catered dinners before a fame. Honor Society is lucky if it gets a cupcake. Academic success-forget it. That requires too much imagination. There's no scoreboard.
In order to be a leader a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. Hence, the supreme quality for a leader is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. If a man's associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line. In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! I hope I'll be safe at home!
There are several differences between a football game and a revolution. For one thing, a football game usually lasts longer and the participants wear uniforms. Also, there are usually more casualties in a football game. The object of the game is to move a ball past the other team's goal line. This counts as six points. No points are given for lacerations, contusions, or abrasions, but then no points are deducted, either. Kicking is very important in football. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic players even kick the ball, occasionally.
It is a certainty that Keegan would not have agreed to return unless Mike Ashley had committed to sanctioning a mammoth spending spree. The downside, which Keegan will soon discover, is the law of diminishing returns in a league that is now the richest in the world. The type of multi-million-pound investment that bankrolled the first Newcastle revival under Keegan is now two-a-penny. Buying success just isn't as easy as it used to be. The Premiership's paradox is that the more money there is, the more the art of management gains in value.
I've always been terrified of violence which is probably why I keep making violent films - I'm trying to exorcise some demons or something. My mum ended up bringing me up on the edge of a big estate in south London, so I was on the periphery of violence - a lot of football violence and stuff because I was a Millwall supporter. So I've always had a very healthy fear of it, yet at the same time a fascination. I think in all of my films that's a really strong subtext... people who are terrified by violence but are yet compelled by it as well.
I'll explain it to you. To me it's more than a game." She touches her chest and says, "When you love something as much as I love football, you just feel it inside. Did you ever love doing something so bad that it consumed you?" "A long time ago." "That's what football is to me. It's my passion, my life… my escape. When I play, I forget everything that sucks in my life. And when we win…" She looks down like she's embarrassed to admit what she's about to reveal. "I know this is going to sound stupid, but when we win I think miracles can happen.
Footballers today are forced to conform to a bodily aesthetic that in its rigidity and uniformity makes fashion models look as varied as snowflakes. This wasn't always so. Up until the 1980s most teams in all divisions had a couple of fat ones, a couple of little ones, at least one bandy one, one completely covered in hair, two weaklings and a chap with no neck. This was an era when you didn't need names on the backs of shirts in order to tell who's who, you could clearly identify them with your eyes half shut from the other side of the pitch.
Everybody who plays top-level sport, whether it's golf or football, or whatever, needs to get into 'The Zone'... For me personally, on the morning of a round, preparation is always about getting into the zone. The less I communicate with other people, the better. I'm trying to rehearse in my mind what I am working on in my game: going through my swing keys, going through my putting keys. When I get to the course I get the pin positions for the day and I'll analyze those. I'll make a strategy for the golf course and look how I'm going to play it
For those fed up with the lack of mystery at the top of the Premiership, could I refer you to the commanding heights of the Conference. The wide points gap between first and second says we are about to witness the return to the football league of Accrington Stanley. So legendary have they become that everyone across the generations knows them, yet even those of the certain age required (you'd be pushing 60) can scarcely believe they were ever there. What proof do we have that this most Garcia Marquez of football teams was, is and yet may truly be?
Our very success, gained you will agree by skill, will draw more people than ever to see it. And that will benefit many more clubs than Rangers. Let the others come after us. We welcome the chase. It is healthy for us. We will never hide from it. Never fear, inevitably we shall have our years of failure, and when they arrive, we must reveal tolerance and sanity. No matter the days of anxiety that come our way, we shall emerge stronger because of the trials to be overcome. That has been the philosophy of the Rangers since the days of the gallant pioneers.
When I did TV shows and movies, the studios did demographic research. They were shocked to find that my audience isn't just men who are too drunk to turn off the TV after football. It's women, too. I don't know exactly why, other than that I've tried to remain true to myself for all these years. I have gone through a lot, and I've been open about it. Maybe they look at me and can see how you can grow up, have children, continue to be sexy, get married and divorced and, though you grew up poor, live the American dream. I'm very blessed. I'm happy for it all.
In a bygone era, penalty-takers would put their laces through the ball and threaten to put a permanent bulge in the netting. For reasons that remain a mystery, the modern preference is for side-footed placement and so the dilemma of goalkeepers has changed from whether to take a guess at dive right or left to if they should dive at all. Or at least that ought to have been their reappraisal. Almunia was feted as the hero in Rome but had he and Doni stayed in the centre of their goal then the number of saves they made in the shoot-out would have been doubled.
Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end and that, in order to squalch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in 14 days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench.
Our junior national teams feature increasing numbers of kids from immigrant backgrounds, but who have grown up in Germany. Their roots are elsewhere, but they feel German. They draw on two cultures, and I believe that's been a real and visible factor in the football we've been playing. One of the best and abiding images was Cacau, a Christian with Brazilian roots, celebrating a goal with Mesut Ozil, a Muslim from a Turkish background. Ozil jumped on to Cacau's shoulders, and they gazed up into the stands, both wearing Germany shirts. It was wonderfully symbolic.
Bruno opened his eyes in wonder at the things he saw. In his imagination he had tough that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived there would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground. As it turned out, all the things he thought might be there-wern't.'' -The boy in the striped Pajamas
What are you doing here? Tell me why you are here. If you are not here to win a national championship, you're in the wrong place. You boys are special. I don't want my players to be like other students. I want special people. You can learn a lot on the football field that isn't taught in the home, the church, or the classroom. There are going to be days when you think you've got no more to give and then you're going to give plenty more. You are going to have pride and class. You are going to be very special. You are going to win the national championship for Alabama.
It is customary for columnists to complain about the excesses of Premiership footballers, whenever - as happens regularly - there is an incident involving some combination of sex, drugs, drink, violence and the constabulary. But modern footballers have a lot of both money and disposable time, a combination that has proved a recipe for personal disaster throughout history. And these incidents take place generally round night clubs rather than football clubs. The average Premiership player who turned up for work drunk would have a career-expectancy measurable in minutes.
Women: I liked the colors of their clothing; the way they walked; the cruelty in some faces; now and then the almost pure beauty in another face, totally and enchantingly female. They had it over us: they planned much better and were better organized. While men were watching professional football or drinking beer or bowling, they, the women, were thinking about us, concentrating, studying, deciding - whether to accept us, discard us, exchange us, kill us or whether simply to leave us. In the end it hardly mattered; no matter what they did, we ended up lonely and insane.
He could tell at once that they carried different sorts of bubble bath mixed with the water though it wasn't bubble bath as Harry had ever experienced. One tap gushed pink and blue bubbles the size of footballs; another poured ice-white foam so thick that Harry thought it would have supported his weight if he'd cared to test it; a third sent heavily perfumed purple clouds hovering over the surface of the water. Harry amused himself for a while turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs.
I have to say, Any Given Sunday was good, but it was too ambitious. You can't do everything in three hours. It went on through ownership issues, quarterback issues, the running back issues, LT issues, and all that, even the coach issues. It was too much. Whereas, Playmakers says, Yeah, you got all those problems, but my god, you're playing football, you're doing the best thing in the world. You're playing football, you're having fun, you're getting paid to play a game. Well, with all the bad things about Hollywood all the drug use, all that, it's still a pretty good life.
My parents preached so much about Christianity and my mother thinks Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to the world - which he is - and God found a way of making examples for me. Like, just growing up, bullets would hit my partner but not me and I'd be right there. Or my Dad had a thing where he would make me play for the sorry team during football and make me go up against all my friends. It built a certain kind of character and a humble factor into me because I knew I had to work for it. And then to be able to beat them or be just as successful at so many things.