Quotes About English Football

#1. What United have got that Chelsea haven't is Paul Scholes. I think he is different to anything else in English football.

Kevin Keegan

#2. Sometimes English football takes pride in having the lowest yellow-card count in Europe, but of course it will have if you can take someone's leg off and still not be booked.

Luis Suarez

#3. I like English football, always have. It's just that people go on about the World Cup in 1986 and then I'm seen as the real bad boy.

Diego Maradona

#4. German football is like English football. The Germans and the English do not play like a Brazilian side. They have to improve, bring up their young players, who have character.

Franz Beckenbauer

#5. When I'm in town on Sundays, I sometimes go down to the Central Bar in the East Village to watch English football. But my natural inclination now is to get in the car with my wife and kids and get out of town.

Joe Scarborough

#6. It was the proudest moment of my career to lead my team out at the home of English football. I never, ever dreamt that would happen!

Casey Stoney

#7. English football is in a bad way because the foreign players here are so good, so dominant.

Kevin Keegan

#8. There are lots of concerns facing English football but for me the major one is the way in which football clubs are run by owners, whether they are growing organically and sustainably and how that is being policed by the football authorities.

Gary Neville

#9. 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

#10. English football is so physical and fast that when you see a space, you have to go into it with all your speed.

Yaya Toure

#11. If we had a starting XI that no one could argue about it wouldn't say a lot for English football. We'd probably be on a downward spiral. It's good that people have different ideas about who should play.

Rio Ferdinand

#12. I played English football - soccer - instead of American football, because we couldn't afford the equipment.

Wally Schirra

#13. English football has just had a transfer window imposed for the first time, so it will be interesting to see how managers cope with the squads they have until it re-opens.

David Ginola

#14. In my first season I was learning about English football in a new team. I scored 13 which isn't bad, but I think I can do better.

Luis Garcia

#15. It's fantastic for Arsenal, and for English football as well. You've got an English club with a lot of young English talent committing themselves to a club.

Dennis Bergkamp

#16. You see how Spanish, Italians, Portuguese play football. I don't say they are perfect, I say English football has a few things to learn from them in the same way they have a lot of things to learn from English football.

Jose Mourinho

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

Pele

#18. I'm adapting quite well to English football with the same will I've always had.

Sergio Aguero

#19. Doping in English football is restricted to lager and baked beans with sausages. After which the players take to the field, belching and farting. English football culture is one of pure, intense competition, and that's why I have always preferred it to Italy.

Paolo Di Canio

#20. I have come to know well that fates are fickle in the business of English football. And I feel that I have pushed mine well past the limit.

Randy Lerner

#21. Winning the Championship is like taking a 26-year ball and chain from around our legs. Now we can go forward, and hopefully dominate English football for the next 10 years, like Liverpool did.

Bryan Robson

#22. I feel I have a lot to learn from English football and I am completely open to good influences in my way of thinking football. But I also have things to give them.

Jose Mourinho

#23. ,000 people in Hampden Park. Of course they're all Scottish. Because no one else goes there. The English have an unwritten rule: they only go to places they might get back from.

Billy Connolly

#24. I love this game, I love this sport, I love this league. Why don't I get my own team? (English Premiership football club)

Roman Abramovich

#25. The people don't take baths and they don't speak English. No golf courses, no room service. Who needs it?

Jim McMahon

#26. 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

#27. We had probably our best ever Player of the Year Dance last week. You elected Dennis Wise as Player of the Year. Dennis accepted his award mimicking Vialli, whereupon Zola shouted 'Speak English', Dennis switched to his normal Cockney voice only for Zola to shout 'You're still not speaking English'.

Ken Bates

#28. Supporting the English cricket team is like supporting a second division football team. I support Norwich City football team and when they lose I really don't mind because I expect them to; but when we win I'm so happy - much happier than any Arsenal supporter could ever be.

Stephen Fry

#29. The crowds at West Ham haven't been rewarded by results, but they keep turning up because of the good football they see. Other clubs will suffer from the old bugbear that results count more than anything. This has been the ruination of English soccer.

Ron Greenwood

#30. The businessman turns out to have a lot of zanshin. Translating this concept into English is like translating "fuckface" into Nipponese, but it might translate into "emotional intensity" in football lingo.

Neal Stephenson

#31. And I think because of the passion of every English player and every English supporter, and every English journalist for the game, most of the game is played with passion, love for football and instinct, but in football you also have to think.

Jose Mourinho

#32. I played a little basketball, but basketball interfered with theater season. That's when we did our term plays and did nutshell versions of Shakespeare for English classes. And, believe me, I got a fair amount of looks from the guys on the team. 'You're in theater but you can play football?'

Dennis Haysbert

#33. Playing with wingers is more effective against European sides like Brazil than English sides like Wales.

Ron Greenwood

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

Brian Clough

#35. Tottenham, and I hope the English fans will forgive me, are a club in mid-table and I need more.

Samuel Eto'o

#36. 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.

Phil Cornwell

#37. Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football.

Bill Bryson

#38. I'm too tired to speak in English ...

David Ginola

#39. At school, myself and some pals, all football-daft, divided up the old English First Division and wrote off to half a dozen clubs each asking for a trial.

Drew Busby

#40. God bless whoever invented football. It was the English, I think. And what a fantastic idea it was

Paolo Rossi

#41. The English public doesn't really like Shakespeare; it prefers football.

Hesketh Pearson