129 Football Celebrity Quotes

Football Celebrity Quotes. We have compiled a list of the most inspiring and motivating celebrity quotes by the world's famous athletes. 

If you love soccer, then you need to check out these motivating and inspiring quotes.

Soccer Quotes by Lionel Messi

1. “I’m lucky to be part of a team that helps to make me look good, and they deserve as much of the credit for my success as I do for the hard work we have all put in on the training ground.” – Lionel Messi

2. “I have many years to get better and better, and that has to be my ambition. The day you think there are no improvements to be made is a sad one for any player.” – Lionel Messi

3. “Whether it’s a friendly match, or for points, or a final, or any game – I play the same. I’m always trying to be my best, first for my team, for myself, for the fans, and to try and win.” – Lionel Messi

4. “In football (soccer) as in watchmaking, talent, and elegance mean nothing without rigor and precision.” – Lionel Messi

5. “The day you think there are no improvements to be made is a sad one for any soccer player.” – Lionel Messi

6. “What I do is play soccer, which is what I like.” – Lionel Messi

Soccer Quotes by Diego Maradona

7. “When you win, you don’t get carried away. But if you go step by step, with confidence, you can go far.” – Diego Maradona

8. “To see the ball, to run after it, makes me the happiest man in the world.” – Diego Maradona

9. “There are hundreds of Beckhams playing football (referring to soccer) all over the world.” – Diego Maradona

10. “I have 23 top players and they are all ready to put on the jersey and work on the pitch and that makes you happy and then you have peace of mind.” – Diego Maradona

11. “When people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success.” – Diego Maradona

Soccer Quotes by Cristiano Ronaldo

12. “I see myself as the best footballer in the world. If you don’t believe you are the best, then you will never achieve all that you are capable of.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

13. “Without football (soccer), my life is worth nothing.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

14. “Every season is a new challenge to me, and I always set out to improve in terms of games, goals, assists.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

15. “I have my flaws too, but I am a professional who doesn’t like to miss or lose.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

16. “I want to consistently play well and win titles. I’m only at the beginning.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

17. “In football, I don’t have a lot of friends. The people who I trust, there are not many… Most of the time, I’m alone.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

18. “One rule that will work if it is used everywhere, is that when you have a free-kick, the referee puts the mark on the floor to make sure the defenders keep their distance.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

19. “Talent without working hard is nothing.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

20. “Winning – that’s the most important to me. It’s as simple as that.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

21. “I think sometimes the best training is to rest.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

22. “I’m living a dream I never want to wake up from.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

Soccer Quotes by Pelé

23. “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” – Pelé

24. “Everything is practice.” – Pelé

25. “If I pass away one day, I am happy because I tried to do my best. My sport allowed me to do so much because it’s the biggest sport in the world.” – Pelé

26. “I am constantly being asked about individuals. The only way to win is as a team. Football is not about one or two or three-star players.” – Pelé

27. “A lot of people, when a guy scores a lot of goals, think, ‘He’s a great player’ because a goal is very important, but a great player is a player who can do everything on the field. He can do assists, encourage his colleagues, give them the confidence to go forward. It is someone who, when a team does not do well, becomes one of the leaders.” – Pelé

28. “I always had a philosophy which I got from my father. He used to say, ‘Listen. God gave to you the gift to play football. This is your gift from God. If you take care of your health, if you are in good shape all the time, with your gift from God no one will stop you, but you must be prepared.” – Pelé

29. “Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.” – Pelé

30. “Lionel Messi is a wonderful player. Very skillful. Highly intelligent. He is not good in the air.” – Pelé

31. “At 17, I already had responsibility because I took care of my family, but in the football I was young; I wasn’t experienced or the captain – I was just in the team.” – Pelé

32. “You must respect people and work hard to be in shape. And I used to train very hard. When the other players went to the beach after training, I was there kicking the ball.” – Pelé

33. “All my life I thank God. My family was very religious.” – Pelé

34. “Of course, my father was a soccer player. He used to play very well. Then, when I was young, eight or nine years old, ten years old, I just want to be like my father.” – Pelé

35. “I always think that I would have become an actor if I hadn’t been a soccer player.” – Pelé

36. “A penalty is a cowardly way to score.” – Pelé

37. “Sport is very inspirational for young people.” – Pelé

Quotes by Zinedine Zidane

38. “We must not let ourselves get driven off course, no matter what happens we must stick to our natural game.” – Zinedine Zidane

39. “I need to play intensely every day, to fight every match hard.” – Zinedine Zidane

40. “The door can never be closed for good to any player.” – Zinedine Zidane

41. “When your fans whistle and jeer, then you have a big problem.” – Zinedine Zidane

42. “Football boots are very technical and have lots of specific requirements.” – Zinedine Zidane

43. “I once cried because I had no shoes to play soccer, but one day, I met a man who had no feet.” – Zinedine Zidane

Quotes by Johan Cruyff

44. “Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple.” – Johan Cruyff

45. “Technique is not being able to juggle a ball 1000 times. Anyone can do that by practicing. Then you can work in the circus. The technique is passing the ball with one touch, with the right speed, at the right foot of your teammate.” – Johan Cruyff

46. “Choose the best player for every position, and you’ll end up not with a strong XI, but with 11 strong 1’s.” – Johan Cruyff

47. “I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.” – Johan Cruyff

48. “Players that aren’t true leaders but try to be, always bash other players after a mistake. True leaders on the pitch already assume others will make mistakes.” – Johan Cruyff

49. “After you’ve won something, you’re no longer 100 percent, but 90 percent. It’s like a bottle of carbonated water where the cap is removed for a short while. Afterward, there’s a little less gas inside.” – Johan Cruyff

50. “You have got to shoot, otherwise you can’t score.” – Johan Cruyff

51. “Speed is often confused with insight. When I start running earlier than the others, I appear faster.” – Johan Cruyff

52. “Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins.” – Johan Cruyff

53. “Football is about having the best offensive play possible. I always like to play offensive football, and nobody will convince me otherwise.” – Johan Cruyff

54. “Without the ball, you can’t win.” – Johan Cruyff

55. “To win you have to score one more goal than your opponent.” – Johan Cruyff

56. “There is only one ball, so you need to have it.” – Johan Cruyff

57. “Quality without results is pointless. Results without quality are boring.” – Johan Cruyff

58. “There are very few players who know what to do when they’re not marked. So sometimes you tell a player: that attacker is very good, but don’t mark him.” – Johan Cruyff

Soccer Quotes by Ronaldinho

59. “My heroes were always soccer players.” –Ronaldinho

60. “Football is about joy. It’s about dribbling. I favor every idea that makes the game beautiful. Every good idea has to last.” – Ronaldinho

61. “For me, soccer provides so many emotions, a different feeling every day.” – Ronaldinho

62. “If you’re playing for five hours you don’t want to score goals all the time and I loved dribbling. I could score a goal, but I preferred to dribble.” – Ronaldinho

63. “My only concern is playing. Everything else, my family looks after. In our house, everyone has a job, and my job in our house is to play soccer.” – Ronaldinho

64. “It is not just about the money, it is about what you achieve on the pitch.” – Ronaldinho

65. “My game is based on improvisation. Often, a forward does not have the time to think too much. You have a second, rarely more, to decide whether to dribble, shoot, or pass to the right or left. It is an instinct that gives the orders.” – Ronaldinho

66. “I come from a family where soccer has always been very present. My uncles, my father, and my brother were all players.” – Ronaldinho

David Beckham Soccer Quotes

67. “Soccer is a magical game.” – David Beckham

68. “I don’t have time for hobbies. At the end of the day, I treat my job as a hobby. It’s something I love doing” – David Beckham

69. “I just want people to see me as a hard-working footballer and someone passionate about the game.” – David Beckham

70. “As a footballer, you always want to test yourself against the best.” – David Beckham

71. “I’m a very stubborn person. I think it has helped me over my career. I’m sure it has hindered me at times as well, but not too many times. I know that if I set my mind to do something, even if people are saying I can’t do it, I will achieve it.” – David Beckham

72. “We stay as a team. I might be England captain, but that doesn’t mean I get treated differently.” – David Beckham

73. “I love scoring goals for England and playing for England. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t retire – I love playing for my country.” – David Beckham

74. “My private life is perfect. If your private life and your life outside football is good, then it is good on the field for you.” – David Beckham

75. “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” – David Beckham

Wayne Rooney Quotes

76. “I just hate losing and that gives you an extra determination to work harder.” – Wayne Rooney

77. “I love football, I’ve never really taken an interest in anything else.” – Wayne Rooney

78. “I play the game as honestly as I can. If the referee gives a penalty there is nothing you can do.” – Wayne Rooney

79. “You just want to keep playing consistently now and keep working hard and I’m sure the goals will come.” – Wayne Rooney

80. “Football is made up of all kinds of conflict. In a dressing room, between players, between us and the manager, between us and loads of people who don’t seem to matter. It’s constant and harsh sometimes.” – Wayne Rooney

81. “I love football, football is my life.” – Wayne Rooney

82. “As you get older you play in more important games and that is when you start thinking about what will happen if you win or lose.” – Wayne Rooney

83. “I love football so when I finish playing I would like to still be involved in it somehow and a manager would be my first choice.” – Wayne Rooney

84. “I train as hard as I can every time I train and I do extra training every day and I’ve done that since I was a young boy.” – Wayne Rooney85. “Sometimes you have to rest in certain games, but I want to play in every game.” – Wayne Rooney

86. “There are many ways to grow football-wise. You go slow or are pushed to go faster, otherwise, you get left behind. For me, there would be trouble in stopping learning.” – Wayne Rooney

87. “If you don’t score, and you have chances, you are disappointed.” – Wayne Rooney

88. “I’ve trained all my life. I’ve always been one who enjoys training so it’s not something that I think I can just stop doing. It might not be as regular but I want to keep training.” – Wayne Rooney

Steven Gerrard Quotes

89. “In football, the hero and legend status is given out far too easily for me.” – Steven Gerrard

90. “It’s too easy to blame other people in football.” – Steven Gerrard

91. “I was always determined to make it as a footballer, but if things hadn’t worked out, I’d have maybe followed my dad into the building industry.” – Steven Gerrard

92. “If you don’t play well, you have a bad game or a nightmare you know that the amount of coverage is worldwide.” – Steven Gerrard

Xavi Quotes

93. “In football, the result is an impostor. You can do things well but not win. There’s something greater than the result, more lasting – a legacy.” – Xavi

94. “There are two types of football – there are physical football and football talent.” – Xavi

95. “You pressure, you want possession, you want to attack. Some teams can’t or don’t pass the ball. What are you playing for? What’s the point? That’s not football. Combine, pass, play. That’s football – for me, at least.” – Xavi

96. “I spend the entire 90 minutes looking for space on the pitch. I’m always between the opposition’s two holding midfielders and thinking, ‘The defense is here, so I get the ball and I go there to where space is.” – Xavi

Thierry Henry Quotes

97. “To be a footballer was just a dream, and I don’t believe in dreams. I only deal with what is real. To be honest, I’ve never thought about what I could get out of football or where it would take me. I just wanted to play. I’m the same now.” – Thierry Henry

98. “I always think about what I missed, and I think that was my driving force – never be satisfied with what I’ve done.” – Thierry Henry

99. “My dad always taught me to never be satisfied: to want more and know that what is done is done. That was his way of seeing the game.” – Thierry Henry

100. “That’s the way I’ve been educated: I always think about what I missed and the things that you did, you did them, so you don’t have to think about them anymore.” – Thierry Henry

Bill Shankly Quotes

101. “If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing.” – Bill Shankly

102. “Some people think football (soccer) is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.” – Bill Shankly

103. “Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor.” – Bill Shankly

104. “Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.” – Bill Shankly

105. “A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.” – Bill Shankly

106. “Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is simple.” – Bill Shankly

107. “A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.” – Bill Shankly

108. “If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be.” – Bill Shankly

109. “Pressure is working down the pit. The pressure is having no work at all. The pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week. The pressure is not the European Cup or the Championship or the Cup Final. That’s the reward.” – Bill Shankly

Christine Sinclair Quotes

110. “When I was growing up, you didn’t know there was a women’s national team. Now girls grow up dreaming of playing for Canada.” – Christine Sinclair

111. “I think a lot of people thought women’s soccer had arrived and it was here to stay and it was going to be huge, but that wasn’t realistic. It has progressed slowly.” – Christine Sinclair

112. “I think the thing that has sort of always separated me, even from when I was younger, is my ability to score goals.” – Christine Sinclair

113. “I have a Pomeranian dog named Nutmeg – a combination of the soccer move and the color. It’s perfect.” – Christine Sinclair

Motivational Soccer Quotes

114. “You don’t inspire your teammates by showing them how amazing you are. You inspire them by showing them how amazing they are” – Robyn Benincasa

115. “Play with your heart not just your feet”

116. “In football, everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.” – Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre

117. “Good players practice until they get it right. But great players practice until they never get it wrong”

118. “The greatest feeling in the world is when you're on that soccer field, and you know that your team is going to succeed because you look around and see your 10 best friends playing beside you.”

119. “Soccer isn’t something that you can fake. It’s a feeling, a passion, a lifestyle. If you don’t live, eat, sleep, and breath soccer, then you are not a true soccer player, you just wear the jersey.”

120. “Every moment you spend not playing soccer, someone out there is getting better than you.”

121. “If you ask why I play soccer, I ask you why do you breathe.”

122. “Soccer is life. I was born to play soccer and I will die playing soccer, that is why I need to live it out!”

123. “I don’t play soccer because it’s fun, I play it because of the passion for the game because without it there is nothing and it is like a headache when you can’t play. Soccer isn’t just my sport it is my way of life and my passion!”

124. “A great soccer player is never content with their performance.”

125. “The pride you gain is worth the pain.”

126. “Soccer is more than a ball and some goals. Soccer is the reason I wake up every day and breath.”

Funny Soccer Quotes

127. “My boyfriend told me to choose between him and soccer… I’m gonna miss him”

128. “If you want to see me, you must be quick. If you want to catch me, you must be fast. If you want to beat me, you must be kidding.”

129. “Give a man a soccer ball, he plays for a moment. Teach a man to play soccer, he plays for a lifetime.”