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Vladimir Putin bribed a soccer official with a Picasso painting so he would support Russia's bid to host the 2018 World Cup. Putin was like, 'It wasn't Picasso, just picture of what his face would look like if he said no.' (Nose over here, eye up here, ear in forehead.)
Look at my haircut. I am ready for the war. The objective is to win the Premiershp. I don't want to dominate, to finish without defeat, record points or goals or consecutive wins. The Premiership is so difficult you cannot be focused on that. I just think about winning.
To combat the monotony of gym workouts, I started playing soccer. I looked at workouts as training sessions. My soccer training includes squats, pushups, resistance-band work, and sprints. Ninety minutes of running became part of my love of the game rather than a chore.
A soccer game is a Wagner opera. The narrative sets up, the tension builds, the music ebbs and flows, the strings, the horns, more tension, and suddenly a moment of pure bliss, trumpet-tongued Gabriel sings, and gods descend from Olympus to dance - this peak of ecstasy.
I went to professional men's soccer games, the old North American soccer league at that time, and I used to be a ticket holder with my family and family friends. We would go every weekend and I thought it was great, but I just thought of it as recreation, as family fun.
I was very young, but I just remember going to school every day in England, which I didn't enjoy. Every day, as soon as the bell would ring, we would go out and be on this little - it looked like a basketball court, but it was a soccer court with goals and a hard floor.
I think - I hope - that we're going to be able to build something here with U.S. Soccer, where it's not just going to be about one lost match or one lost cycle or one lost team. It's going to be about an entire country rallying around an entire sport in a way that lasts.
I came from the soccer world, so all I knew was get the ball in that net. And when you're working with WWE, you're pretty much doing stunt work. You have to train and make sure you're safe and you're safe for your opponent, but at the same time, you have to tell a story.
I played soccer, and I played in a band, and sometimes I was able to do a movie. And my school would cooperate. It was a very easy way to roll into what later became my profession. It's more innocent. When you're a child actor in the U.S., it's a different thing I think.
I never thought then I'd be doing what I'm doing now. At my high school, being on the girls soccer team was the cool thing to do, but that was definitely never going to happen for me, so I played music. Not because everyone thought it was awesome, but for the love of it.
Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of being paid like NBA, NFL and soccer and baseball athletes. They have that cushion where they can kind of hang out. Even the guys on the bench. But for us, we don't fight, we don't get paid and that's the scary reality to it all.
I grew up loving Brazilian soccer. What made me think soccer was cool was these guys making soccer look like fun and easy, and they would just destroy people. It was an art. I loved that. And that's the way I learned the game and mimicked a style. It's just so beautiful.
For me pressure is bird flu. I'm serious. I'm feeling a lot of pressure with the problem in Scotland. It's not fun and I'm more scared of it than football. Football is nothing compared with life. For me bird flu is the drama of the last few days. I'll have to buy a mask.
Soccer was the first sport that my parents put me in, and ultimately, all the parents kind of came over to my mom and were, 'We think Channing would be better at football.... We love him, he's really great, but he's kind of hurting our children.' I was just a little wild.
I'm a big advocate of starting soccer young and always having the ball at your foot, but that's because I didn't do that. If I'd focused more on that when I was a kid, it would've been so helpful. It took me, like, halfway through college to feel comfortable with the ball.
We need to look at our nannying, mollycoddled, politically correct culture in my view, which stops kids from going out and playing competitive sport. I also think we need to look at the shear fatness of the regulations which control people who want to help kids play sport.
Like it or not, I've come to appreciate soccer. Any kid can play, which fits with the inclusive agenda of progressive schools. Although the corollary to 'any kid can play' is that every kid must play because there is an iron grip to the warm hug of progressive inclusionism.
I think, really, that the only way a person can open their heart to someone who is so much another is really by knowing them... whether that's in a classroom, or a soccer team, or a food pantry, or any of those things. I mean, we're kind of more alike than we are different.
Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you.
I can remember certain Manchester United defeats the way most people remember family bereavements or great political events. The four-nil drubbing by Barcelona, the failure to score against West Ham, the New Year's Day calamity at home to Spurs, the mauling by Middlesborough.
When we started training with WWE, coaches were impressed and asked if we had had boxing training. I said no, it was all soccer. As a defender, I had to learn to stay on my feet, track backwards, and I feel all the movement I do in the ring was helped by my soccer background.
I was passionate about soccer. I still am. Odd, though - playing soccer always made me much more anxious than playing tennis. On soccer days, I'd be out of bed by 6 in the morning, all nervous. But I was always calm when it was time for a tennis match. I still don't know why.
I like the individualism about it. I like how each player is kind of different. It's a team sport, but still, once you've got the ball in your hand, you can kind of create things. But I like the team dynamic about it also. You've got to work together in soccer to score a goal.
I'll admit, right away, that I am disappointed that we did not have a major trophy to show for our efforts. We were in four and we had a good side, but when you count second place as failure, then standards are becoming fantastically high. We never celebrate second place here.
There is nothing you can be doing in lacrosse on your own in the fall that would be better for you than going to football or soccer practice every day. You can go bang a ball against a wall all you want, but how do you become a better team player? By playing other team sports.
I played soccer my whole life. I'm kind of a heavier person, and whenever you kick and punt, no matter how limited an activity it is, my brain and shoulders are going to be OK because I didn't play a tough guy position, but my knees took a lot of wear and tear from the kicking.
On Saturday morning, one of the two teams still unbeaten in the Premiership occupied a modest seventh place. It is an illustration of the relentless pace being set at the top of the league in which every stumble is a serious fall and draws usually constitute two dropped points.
When people say 'American soccer,' they think of the U.S. national team. But American soccer also includes Major League Soccer, and until we have a league that produces players at the rate other leagues around the world do, I don't believe we'll ever get to where we want to be.
England are very light up front. Eriksson's decision not to include Jermaine Defoe can be declared an error of judgment, regardless of Rooney's situation. The Swede should have forgone one of his nine midfield players; much will have to go wrong for Jermaine Jenas to get a game.
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.
I have survived so long because I've been blessed with talented and gracious colleagues and with a top brass who let me choose my topics every week and then allowed me to express opinions that were not always popular. Well, someone had to stand up to the yackety-yak soccer cult.
I don't think I'll ever feel as famous or as popular as I felt when I was a 17-year-old soccer player in Modle. Only about 20,000 people live there and 12,000 of them come to every game. Running onto the pitch each week was just the most fantastic feeling. Nothing can beat that.
While American football is very structured and linear and static, where everyone lines up and there's a burst and it happens, soccer is like the cosmos. It's like constellations. It's bodies moving in space. It's a very spherical game. You can move in any direction, at any time.
I don't really have many regrets. I did miss a lot of the events in the days leading up to my sister's wedding because I was at a U17 camp. There were moments like that growing up when I felt like I focused too much on soccer. But that's probably the reason I am where I am today.
You always have to prove yourself. I always thought I had to go beyond things to get great grades. When I was applying for college, even though I knew I was going to play soccer, I always knew I had to do something above and beyond and not give anyone a reason not to overlook me.
We have demonstrated that we are the best, I'm also happy because everyone seems to enjoy our football, whether or not they are Barca fans. All over the world, I've heard people saying that they have been enchanted by us. This type of football deserves to be rewarded with titles.
Forever, it was just soccer - passion, life, love. Then I got married, and I had to transfer some of my energy. I want to be my best for my country, but I also made a really big promise and choice to be the best in my marriage. That has not always been the easiest thing to manage.
If I'm watching my son play soccer, that's what I'm doing. If I'm going to a school concert, that's what I'm doing. I turn the phone off. I actively tune into whatever I'm doing. I walk every evening with one of my sons and for that half an hour, 45 minutes, that's what I'm doing.
How can I think of leaving Liverpool after a night like this? I am really happy with the club. I will be having talks with the chairman and the manager shortly, but it is looking good. Liverpool fans are crazy, they were unbelievable, and I'd like to dedicate this victory to them.
My father always told me I like the ball more than I like playing soccer: since I was a young kid, I was always skilled with it, dribbling furniture around the house. That's how I see football - fun and dynamic - and this goes beyond me; it's a characteristic of Brazilian football.
Soccer must play a socio-cultural role. We reach 1.6 billion people, thanks to the positive emotions that soccer triggers, FIFA is more influential than any country on Earth and any religion. We move masses. We want to use that to create more peace, justice and health in the world.
They [some countries] borrowed money to go acquire things, Indian power plants and Danish newspapers and British soccer teams. And they did it willy-nilly, and they themselves a story, that Icelandic history and culture and DNA leaves us very well-suited to being investment bankers.
The statistics John Wesson has compiled in The Science of Soccer show that Premiership football players are vastly more likely to have been born in the first half of the school year. These were the biggest boys in the class and were thus selected for the school team. How fair is that?
I've used my experience from playing sports in almost every aspect of my life. Playing soccer is where I found my voice, and playing softball was where I learned precision, and in every game I learned to play as a member of a team - to work not for my own glory, but for a shared goal.
As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.
When I saw contestants fighting for their lives on 'The Biggest Loser,' I realized I just wanted to be healthy - to have fun playing soccer with my son or teaching my daughter to shoot hoops. Then it was so much easier to say no to carbs, soda, or dessert, and the weight just came off.
Manchester United have risen to the pinnacle of the English game at a time when the rewards are so high - thanks to the ticket to the Champions League - that they have resources that only a handful of other sides, through merit or the exploitation of the people of Russia, can approach.
Even all the top players going to Europe to play helps soccer in America, as do all the MLS players like Beckham and all that, they're trying to promote it. At the end of the day it's about getting the younger generation interested at an early age so most of them will move on and play.
Greece won the 2004 European Championship with the oldest trick in the book: man-for-man marking. Why? Because nobody expected it - and by the time they knew what Otto Rehhagel's team were about, it was too late. Great football is like great comedy in that way. It is all in the timing.
I wanted to be a soccer player, and I became the best of the best, the number one, better than Maradona, better than Pele, and even better than Messi - but only at night, nighttime, during my dreams. When I wake up, I realized that I have wooden legs and that I'm doomed to be a writer.