Quotes About England Football

#1. In England, football is important for everybody.

Arsene Wenger

#2. I live in Beverly Hills and I'm proud of it. The only things I miss are pie and mash shops and football games. I've lived in America longer than I lived in England. When I first got here, it just felt right to me. I like the open space, and the weather's great.

Steve Jones

#3. Someone in the England team will have to grab the ball by the horns.

Ron Atkinson

#4. A player who dives and wins a penalty in Portugal, or Spain or Italy is considered clever, experienced, cunning, someone who understands the game. In England a player who wins a penalty like that is a cheat.

Jose Mourinho

#5. Whichever country you are, if you lose games you are criticised. It's only when it's England it's like a new world war.

Sven-Goran Eriksson

#6. In England, it's a rare thing to see a player smoking but, all in all, I prefer that to an alcoholic. The relationship with alcohol is a real problem in English football and, in the short term, it's much more harmful to a sportsman. It weakens the body, which becomes more susceptible to injury.

Alex Ferguson

#7. God has given him an attitude that he can deal with anything football throws at him.
(on Michael Owen)

Graeme Souness

#8. When you arrive in England for football it's a paradise.

Eric Cantona

#9. I don't follow football, I just love the name Aston Villa. Here in England you have other footballing entities like Manchester and Arsenal and Chelsea

Tom Hanks

#10. I haven't retired from international football - I still believe I have a part to play in the future of England.

David Beckham

#11. England can end the millenium as it started - as the greatest football nation in the world.

Kevin Keegan

#12. In England, they say that Manchester is the city of rain. It's main attraction is considered to the timetable at the railway station, where trains leave for other, less rainy cities.

Nemanja Vidic

#13. There is a lot of luck in football. Following England is like following Wycombe Wanders or Leyton Orient. You hope for the best and hope you are lucky.

Alan Sugar

#14. I didn't realise you could travel so far and still be in England.

Kevin Bond

#15. In football, you can never say anything is certain. The benchmark is 38-40 points. That has always been the case. That will never change.

Steve Bruce

#16. I love football, but I'm sick of the World Cup. I don't even care about England.

Elton John

#17. In Scotland football hooliganism has been met by banning alcohol from grounds but in England this solution has been circumnavigated

Wallace Mercer

#18. Rob Green needed to get the long barrier out, didn't he?

James Anderson

#19. No matter how much money you have or what kind of cocoon you live in, the reality is that you have lost a game of football and let England's fans down. We are bothered.

Rio Ferdinand

#20. Never, and by this I mean never, criticise the English weather. Especially if you're an alien. For an English woman, it's as though you are scolding her first born child. For an Englishman, it's as if you are criticising the size of his penis. Or even worse: his football team.

Angela Kiss

#21. Still, even after the black winger John Barnes scored his solo goal to beat Brazil in Rio in 1984, the Football Association's chairman was harangued by England fans on the flight back home: "You fucking wanker, you prefer sambos to us.

Simon Kuper

#22. England really is the birthplace, the heart and soul of football. If Barcelona had Liverpool's fans, or Arsenal's, or United's, we'd have won 20 Champions Leagues, hahaha!

Xavi

#23. As you travel around medieval England you will come across a sport described by some contemporaries as 'abominable ... more common, undignified and worthless than any other game, rarely ending but with some loss, accident or disadvantage to the players themselves'. This is football.

Ian Mortimer

#24. I have never thought of a scenario where international football was not a massive part of our [England] game.

Michael Owen

#25. It's to remind our lads who they're playing for, and to remind the opposition who they're playing against.
(on the 'This Anfield' plaque)

Bill Shankly

#26. I think the best place to work in football is England.

Jose Mourinho

#27. I've no regrets at all, but I still think at times that I would have loved to play in England. You live football over there; it's a great culture. People respect you more; it's more difficult to find respect in Spain. There is more criticism here.

Xavi

#28. I'm really glad that Italy went out, they were playing boring football.
(on Euro 2004)

Andy Townsend

#29. Money plays an important role in football, but it is not the dominating factor. When Chelsea play a Carling Cup game in a small city, and it could result in a draw - the excitement, the spirit, the atmosphere - that's the real beauty of football in England.

Roman Abramovich

#30. England did nothing in that World Cup, so why were they bringing books out? 'We got beat in the quarter-finals. I played like s**t. Here's my book.'

Joey Barton

#31. As England manager I always felt we needed an extra man in midfield to retain the ball, but that was more as an attacking ploy to help create opportunities. It came from my experience playing international football in a 4-4-2 and spending half my time chasing the ball.

Glenn Hoddle

#32. If Glenn Hoddle had been any other nationality, he would have had 70 or 80 caps for England.

John Barnes

#33. The level of football in England is the top. English football is the leader in the world.

Pele

#34. Everything happens for a reason, except possibly football.
(in Thief of Time)

Terry Pratchett

#35. He spits out an epithet so nasty I think it's only legal in England. And then only when your favourite football club loses.

Tera Lynn Childs

#36. Sentences I never thought I would write. (1) That John Prescott certainly has a way with the ladies. (2) Give it to Steve McClaren, he seems like the man for the England job. (3) Peter Crouch is the man to replace Rooney.

Martin Samuel

#37. I met Jack Bruce, one of my heroes, in a studio while doing some recording. England had just beat Scotland in a big football match and I saw Jack trying to break into this refrigerator in the lounge, drunk out of his brain, and I didn't know what to say.

Andy Partridge

#38. His return gives England another key to its bow.

Stuart Pearce

#39. At 15, 16, you think you're going to be captain of England. But I realised it wasn't going to happen for me on a windy November night in Darlington, coming to my peak at the age of 23 but still playing for Mansfield Town.

Aidy Boothroyd

#40. Remember I've seen a video tape of a Scotland-England match and I've seen him miss a chance from five yards. It was against England and he couldn't score. So what does that say?

Berti Vogts

#41. Nobody is that thick-skinned that it doesn't hurt you. Still, you always know what happens in football. I have got used to criticism, I suppose, having been high profile with England and Man U.

Bryan Robson

#42. That's football, Mike, Northern Ireland have had several chances and haven't scored but England have had no chances and scored twice.

Trevor Brooking

#43. England is a very strong league, with three or four of the best teams in Europe, but, if I had played there, I would have destroyed it, like I have everywhere else.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

#44. We know, in Wales or in England - you simply can't trust Labour on the NHS. In England, we are delivering for patients while Labour just use the NHS as a political football. We won't let them; we'll always fight for the NHS.

Andrew Lansley

#45. Baseball and American football and hockey are all ahead because they have a history. The MLS is kind of new. So hopefully, in time, and with players coming and trying to develop the game, and the U.S. team also doing well - at the last World Cup, they finished above England and created some buzz.

Thierry Henry

#46. We heard the army before we saw it.
The noise was like a cannon barrage combined with a football stadium crowd- like every Patriots fan in New England was charging us with bazookas.

Rick Riordan

#47. 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.

Matt Dickinson

#48. It's sometimes difficult living in France. People are more open minded in England, and of course I'm missing England in terms of football and the passion that the fans show, they're really passionate.

Emmanuel Petit

#49. David James is frustrated because he thinks us being bottom isn't helping his chances with England. I think it gives him more chance to show his ability.

Glenn Roeder

#50. I have only been here since 1996 but between 1966 and 1996 England had thirty years without foreign players and didn't win any more competitions in that time.

Arsene Wenger

#51. The Cincinnati Bengals look like the most complete team in the National Football League. I can't wait to see how they match up against New England.

Sterling Sharpe

#52. He shouldn't have resigned over that game. It was not a bad performance; in fact it was quite a good one for England. I would not have resigned under those circumstances.

Franz Beckenbauer

#53. I remember cleaning boots at Millwall on £250 a week and feeling like a millionaire. I'd made it then. At that time, if I never played for another club it wouldn't have bothered me too much because I'd made it with a football team in England.

Timothy F. Cahill

#54. England are looking better value for 0-0.

Barry Davies

#55. For Irishmen, there is no football game to match rugby and if all our young men played rugby not only would we beat England and Wales but France and the whole lot of them put together.

Eamon De Valera

#56. Scholes was England's best football player. It was impossible to take the ball from him, and he never mishit a pass.

Sven-Goran Eriksson

#57. When England go to Turkey there could be fatalities - or even worse, injuries.

Phil Neal

#58. If he'd been English or Swedish, he'd have walked the England job.

Brian Clough

#59. Well, I've learned a lot from Bill Belichick. I've said time and time again, before I got to New England, I thought I knew a lot about football. But I think he taught me a lot from A to Z. I still carry it to this day.

Randy Moss

#60. Welcome to Bologna on Capital Gold for England versus San Marino with Tennent's Pilsner, brewed with Czechoslovakian yeast for that extra Pilsner taste and England are one down.

Jonathan Pearce

#61. The England manager job is not for me - I'm very happy wih what I'm doing in French football for now.

Gerard Houllier

#62. Maine Road was a great football stadium but as time moved on it stayed where it is ...

Kevin Keegan

#63. If you take the money away, a lot of the footballers would still be playing football. So, the money has nothing to do with it.

Alan Shearer