Soccer, or as commonly known as football in Europe, is a team sport played by about 250 million in over 200 countries, making this the world’s most popular sport.
Did you know that a traditional soccer ball has 32 panels, one for each European country? Also, though the game called “soccer” or “football,” the game’s original name was “basket-ball” because its goals were overturned wicker baskets. Another interesting fact is that soccer was considered illegal in Mississippi until 1991.
The major international soccer or football competition is the World Cup. It is the most prestigious tournament and most widely viewed sporting event than the Olympic Games. Some of its most well-known players are Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, David Beckham, Marta Silva, and Alex Morgan.
Be inspired to kick and score that goal through some of the best and most inspirational soccer quotes and sayings.
1. “You know, a lot of those angry sort of Southern man characters that I’ve been doing are based on different people I might’ve had as, like, a soccer coach or as a teacher.” — Danny McBride
2. “Getting a chance to practice six months against my own teammates, who I consider the best soccer players in the world, there’s no way I couldn’t improve.” — Lorrie Fair
3. “I think there are a lot of things that soccer does in the communities that transcend the soccer field.” — Brandi Chastain
4. “What I learned from directing, I learned from soccer, where it’s like a coach-player relationship.” — Sean Durkin
5. “I love soccer; I want to be on the field.” — Brandi Chastain
6. “By analogy, if we were to develop a soccer team, then we would not invite basketball and volleyball players to the try outs. We would invite soccer players to apply.” — Jean-Marie Le Pen
7. “That’s the awesome part. Little girls now have a chance to look up and see women playing soccer, basketball, softball and now hockey – and know they can win a gold medal, too.” — Angela Ruggiero
8. “Good soccer players need not be titans sculpted by Michelangelo. In soccer, ability is much more important than shape, and in many cases, skill is the art of turning limitations into virtues.” — Eduardo Galeano
9. “If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn’t have given us arms.” — Mike Ditka
10. “When good soccer happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.” — Eduardo Galeano
11. “Over the last 10-15 years, you’ve seen soccer finally start to grow at a fast pace, start to get the recognition it deserves, and I think it has to do with all of the people who come to America from foreign countries.” — Claudio Reyna
12. “The wonderful thing about soccer is, a football is a perfectly round object, and it doesn’t make mistakes. The player using it makes mistakes. And the more you use it, the less mistakes you make.” — Craig Johnston
13. “Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple.” — Johan Cruijff
14. “In terms of soccer, it wasn’t really a thing that girls did. In England it more kind of Net Ball and Hockey and stuff like that in athletics. It’s to each their own, really.” — Parminder Nagra
15. “I played English football – soccer – instead of American football, because we couldn’t afford the equipment.” — Wally Schirra
16. “I think we have a good team, but soccer fans will know that we’re in a really tough group. The three teams in our group are really strong.” — Claudio Reyna
17. “Soccer isn’t the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community’s fabric, a repository of traditions.” — Franklin Foer
18. “I get asked this a lot: Why has soccer not succeeded? My answer is, soccer has succeeded. It is already the fastest growing youth participation sport in the U.S. It has already succeeded at the youth level, no question.” — Lamar Hunt
19. “After the ’96 Olympics, we all started believing that this is bigger than we thought, and we were willing to do the work. We knew that it was up to us, the players, to make soccer successful.” — Brandi Chastain
20. “What we are missing over here is the life of soccer.” — Thomas Dooley
21. “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.” — Brandi Chastain
22. “At least for soccer players, it comes down to a blend of two types of fitness – your base endurance, which comes from longer distance running, and your speed, which comes from sprint-based workouts.” — Heather O’Reilly
23. “Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to soccer.” — Albert Camus
24. “But I think it’s also hard to get into soccer here. I think purely on a time level on television as well because of the ad breaks. It’s something to do with that as well. You can’t show a complete soccer match here. Which I kind of find a bit of an odd thing.” — Parminder Nagra
25. “To be honest with you, I never looked at soccer as a sacrifice.” — Brandi Chastain
26. “I think soccer is more respected now than it ever has been. You can see that in the numbers of young kids who are playing and the numbers of people who are coming to watch.” — Brandi Chastain
27. “I love soccer. That’s all I ever watch. I’ll watch it all day if I can. But I’m too bloody old to play now.” — Geezer Butler
28. “People have to pay a lot of money to play soccer here.” — Thomas Dooley
29. “The more people who come from abroad who played soccer and are brought up playing it and watching it, then come over to America and bring what they know and what they play, that’s how the sport will grow.” — Claudio Reyna
30. “Soccer is a matter of life and death, except more important.” — Bill Shankly
31. “I’ve never scored a goal in my life without getting a pass from someone else.” — Abby Wambach
32. “And of course in America you’ve got American football and baseball and all those other ball games, soccer has become a little niche that the women have kind of filled.” — Parminder Nagra
33. “In Europe, it’s different – you eat soccer, you breathe soccer, you drink soccer. Everything is about soccer.” — Thomas Dooley
